The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, with permission, I should like to make a personal Statement. Last Thursday, I answered a question from my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about proceedings in Parliament in which he had mentioned someone's name. In my answer, I said that,
	"those proceedings were not even broadcast on the BBC Parliament channel".—[Official Report, 26/10/06; col. 1279.]
	That was not correct. The BBC Parliament channel did in fact broadcast those proceedings without any editing, both live on the internet and on television the following day. The name was later edited out whenthe proceedings were broadcast on "Today in Parliament" and "Yesterday in Parliament". I give my unreserved apology for having misled the House in that way.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I could not disagree with my noble friend more. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, has never promoted anything sloppily. That was an unfortunate comment to make.
	I rather wish that the noble Lord's Amendment No. 3 was grouped with Amendment No. 12, tabled by my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking, as they deal with the same matter. However, I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. On the "Today" programme this morning, Clifford Longley said in effect that what counts is not so much the admission system as what goes on in a school. That is of course true. In Committee, I supported my noble friend Lord Baker's amendment, but at the same time I wondered if the approach put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, was not more realistic and achievable.
	I am a strong supporter of faith schools. However, it is essential for life in the modern world that young people should learn early to relate naturally and make friends across racial, religious and social boundaries. Without that experience and those skills, young people will have very limited life chances indeed. In a faith school where one in four or five students comes from another background, cross-border relationships happen automatically and naturally. That is the point that my noble friend will doubtless make again when he moves his amendment. Where there are few or no "outsiders" in a school, those chances are very limited. We can all think of circumstances where that might happen. I think that in this country the problem arises not mainly in Anglican and Roman Catholic schools but in the schools of the other religions.
	It would be wise to expect every faith school, not just new ones, to arrange with a school of a different background for shared activities such as lessons, sports opportunities and social events. There might even be a twinning of schools. I do not know whether that is the sort of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, has in mind. He did not specify, which is why my noble friend thought that he was being woolly. I think that most of us were able to read between the lines of the noble Lord's extremely tactful and diplomatic speech—which was clear quite and definite.
	The expectation that a school will make it possible for young people to inter-relate with those from different backgrounds has to be there. The inspectorate is a way of achieving that provided that Ministers are prepared to back up the inspectorate once it has made proposals. Although I fear that I trespass on territory which will be covered by my noble friend, I support the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, as one of the signatories to this amendment I am happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who has so ably moved it today. In answer to the noble Earl, it is worth mentioning a letter from Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Ofsted, which was sent to the Minister in the last day or so. She says:
	"I believe that it will be possible for inspectors to make a judgment on this matter by drawing on evidence including, but not restricted, to self evaluation from the self evaluation form ... and that this will be possible while retaining the overall balance and focus of the inspection".
	There is nothing woolly about that. It is a very hard-headed approach that will be capable of assessment. It represents one of two approaches your Lordships can take to this matter, which was raised last week in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. He has done us all a service in raising this issue. He has concentrated our minds on trying to find a way forward.
	One way we could do that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, said, would be under AmendmentNo. 12, after Clause 45, which we will debate later. That amendment will invite your Lordships to impose quotas on schools. We would then have to determine whether to fix a quota that would be compulsory on all new faith schools. Last week, the Secretary of State stated that that principle could be extended to all Church schools—and concern was expressed about that during last week's debate. It sent a lot of hares running and has led to huge opposition, not just from Catholics but from the Jewish community—the Minister will have seen the letter today from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and others.
	Many impracticalities that go beyond philosophical problems are tied up with quotas. Parents would have to be arraigned through a test act to find out what they believed or did not believe or whether they fitted into the 75 per cent or the 25 per cent. Imagine a situation in which a devout Anglican applied for admission to a new faith school on a Monday and on Tuesday discovered that their child would not be able to enter under the 75 per cent rule. On Wednesday, they could say that they have committed themselves to atheism and, on Thursday, their child could go to that school. On Friday, they could have a roadside conversion and return to the fold. That is what this kind of approach would lead to and that is why the Government and Opposition Front Benches, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said last week that they were opposed to the idea of statutory quotas—and that is why that approach is doomed to failure.
	However, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, concentrated minds on what we need to do to create a sense of social cohesion, and the amendment, as an alternative to the quota approach, does precisely that. It is the other way forward and builds not only on the proven track record of the inspectorate, as my noble friend has said, but the consensus that was created in the 1944 Education Act. Driving a coach and horses through the admissions procedures that were agreed in 1944 will create a precedent that will undoubtedly be used to touch all faith schools.
	Better than that, your Lordships would be wise to follow the counsels of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and build on the 1944 agreement. After all, that was a consensual agreement not just between faith communities but between members of the national Government of the day—RAB Butler was the Education Secretary and his Parliamentary Private Secretary was Chuter-Ede, a member of the Labour Party. Agreement was reached after a painstaking search for a way forward. In education, surely it is better to try to find consensus, rather than confrontation. In particular, I pay tribute to role of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, and her colleague in another place, Nick Gibb, in trying to find a way forward that would meet all the needs of Members of your Lordships' House.
	The amendment is attractive because, unlike a quota approach limited to new faith schools, it touches all schools, whether in the maintained or voluntary-aided sectors. All schools can be inspected on how they plan for and stimulate community cohesion and a sense of personal responsibility. If a school is failing in that regard, it will be possible to require constructive actions.
	There are three ways forward. We can do nothing; we can opt for the quota approach that will destabilise successful schools and cause division and resentment, because quotas will be used as a shoe-in to catch all faith schools; or we can use an approach basedon the cultivation of duties, fostering a love of our institutions, the encouragement of deep tolerance and respect for other faiths and traditions. That would imply that this is not merely an issue for new faith schools, but one that all schools must address. That option is the best way forward and I hope that the House will support it.

Lord Peston: My Lords, before I go on to my main point, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, would do well to read the history of the Education Act 1944, which was not remotely as he described it. It was about RAB Butler buying the Church schools into the system so that he could get the reforms that he wanted. The idea that it was the result of some philosophical discussion and meeting of minds simply does not correspond to the historical facts.
	I was astonished to see this amendment on the Marshalled List as it seems totally to contradict the rest of the Bill. If I wanted to promote community cohesion, as I have always done, I would stick to the view that I have had all my adult life that children should go to their local schools, that those schools should be comprehensive and that they should be full of all the children in the community. The Bill is about the exact opposite of that. Therefore, to use a word from Yiddish, the chutzpah of tabling this amendment absolutely amazes me.
	I am a great admirer, as is everyone, of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, but, given David Hume's view of religion and the possibility of religious schools, quoting him as being in favour of the amendment is equally prosperous. Therefore, although I have a delicacy of touch that the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, does not have, I feel that he is right to draw our attention to this matter. How do you promote community cohesion in a system in which children will be in segregated schools of all kinds and will be encouraged to go to those schools? The idea that the path to follow is to tell children in a school in which they have opted to mix only with people of their own kind that community cohesion is important and that it is part of their education, and thinking that they will believe that, is—

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, I support the amendment. I have the highest regard for the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, the former Chief Inspector of Schools. He has written almost as many reports on schools as I have read. We are both experts on inspectors' reports.
	Before I further express my support for the amendment, perhaps I may chide the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for saying that the implication of my amendment is to impose quotas of 25 per cent. The amendment would not do that. It would give powers to local authorities, if they wished so to use them to create community cohesion, to establish a quota of up to 25 per cent. We must not hear misrepresentations as early as four o'clock; it really is a little bit naughty.
	I support the amendment because it is helpful. It is not an alternative to my amendment. It is helpful because faith schools should be inspected more regularly and in a tighter way—I agree with the noble Lord entirely on that. However, it is being asked to carry a weight which it will not be able to sustain. It would make the inspectors the instruments of a policy—on which I suspect all your Lordships agree—for a happier and more cohesive society. Can we really ask the inspectors to do this? First, as the noble Lord knows, the inspectors inspect schools on very precise details; for example, is this school teaching history to key stages 3 and 4 correctly? In foreign languages, are the children able to practise sufficiently the language which they are studying? Do they have the equipment to do it? What is the quality of teaching? Again and again, some very subjective statements are made, but the inspectors are used to working in close definitions. The first thing they would have to ask is—I am not being pettifogging—what is the meaning of "community"? If an inspector examines an exclusive Jewish or and exclusive Muslim school in, let us say, Tower Hamlets, what is the community of the cohesion with which the inspector is concerned? Is it just Tower Hamlets? Or is it Tower Hamlets and East Ham? Or is it the whole of east London? Or is it the whole of London? That is what inspectors will ask and what the Government will at some stage have to define. They will have to define exactly what "community" means in this context.
	I suspect that what the amendment is getting at is a report on relationships—the relationship of that school with the other local schools, the relationship of that school with the parents and children of other schools. Inspectors will have to look at precisely what is taught in schools under religious education. That was raised by the noble Lord I think. The inspectors will have to make a comment on one of the most difficult fine lines in religious education: where religious education ends and indoctrination starts. That central question has to be asked. Inspectors will have to comment on it and they will have to attend a large number of religious instruction classes in schools to determine that. If religious instruction veers off into indoctrination, communities can suffer a lack of cohesion and trouble can start.
	Inspectors have a huge task. On relationships between schools, which my noble friend Lady Carnegy mentioned, and whether schools can have joint activities, it is marvellous if that can happen, but let us be realistic: there will be no joint activities in sport between a Muslim school and a non-Muslim school because of dress codes; there will be no combined swimming galas; there will be no combined music classes; there will be no combined art classes; and in drama there will be no desire to stage Romeo and Juliet between a Muslim school and an Anglican school because every page of Romeo and Juliet is against the Koran. I suspect that there will not be a great desire to stage a combined King Lear, because filial devotion in that play is not exactly what it ought to be.
	I ask your Lordships to be realistic about this. I entirely accept that relationships and activities are important between schools and they exist in some areas: for example, Catholic schools in Glasgow take their children to the local mosque. I know that because of an episode that appears in a very good novel I read this year, which I recommend to your Lordships, called Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan. It is about a Catholic priest in Glasgow and some ghastly Catholic yobbos—sometimes Catholic schools turn out ghastly yobbos—who are taken to the local mosque and the result is not community cohesion. But that is fiction.
	Schools can come together on civics and learn about that, but the degree of co-operation beyond that is not all that great. That is why people who support my amendment would like to see schools where children of different faiths play together in the playground, sit together in maths and physics lessons, talk together over lunch and go home on the same buses. We think that that is a happier system and a better way to create community cohesion.
	I turn to one specific point made by the noble Lord that reports should be acted upon. As the writer of many reports, he will know that sometimes reports are acted on and sometimes they are not. A recent Chief Inspector of Schools, David Bell, put in a report only a year ago that many Muslim schools,
	"must adapt their curriculum to ensure that [they provide] pupils with a broad general knowledge of public institutions and services in England and help them to acquire an appreciation of and respect for other cultures in a way that promotes tolerance and harmony".
	We all agree with that. What have the Government done as a result of that report? Perhaps the Minister can direct our attention to particular papers that have been issued by the department to implement that recommendation from the inspector, because many reports, as he will know, are not acted on.
	Mr Bell also said:
	"The growth in favour of schools needs to be carefully but sensitively monitored by government to ensure that pupils at all schools receive an understanding of not only their own faith but of other faiths and the wider tenets of British society".
	The department is miserably deficient in that. In the past year, I have asked various questions of the department on faith schools and I get the reply that the information is not held. I have asked how many children from other faiths go to faith schools and it has no idea. It did not even know that the admissions procedures in some faith schools require photographs, which is actually illegal.
	For some time, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has had on his desk a report about a school in Sussex which has only four pupils and which has radical weekends. Why has he not closed that school? If we are to depend on inspectors' reports, we must be satisfied that they are acted on. Although I support the amendment—I think it embodies the direction in which we all want to go—by itself it carries a weight which the issue cannot bear and that is why I hope many noble Lords will later support my amendment.

Lord Ahmed: My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, as I am one of the signatories of Amendments No. 7 and 19. I attended a comprehensive school—I was not fortunate enough to get into a grammar school—and all my children also went to comprehensive schools. I support faith schools because they have provided good education, whether they are Church schools, Jewish schools, Sikh, Hindu or Muslim schools. There are only seven or eight state-funded Muslim schools, not 124. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Baker, saying on television this morning that they might be applying. The Association of Muslim Schools told me this morning that only seven are seeking voluntary-aided status. We need to have facts rather than scaremongering to the effect that there are hundreds of Islamic and Muslim schools that want state funding; we need to make sure that all the rules are in place.
	I apologise to the House that I was not here on Report—I was discussing bail, which was a big national issue for us all. The Association of Muslim Schools told me that it already does as much as it can and it is prepared to do more in terms of intra-community relations and with community cohesion work it already teaches the common vision, common purpose and core values that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, talked about. We need to make sure that our children have a sense of belonging, citizenship, rights and responsibilities. There is more in terms of recognising diversity. Cohesion is not a single way process; it is a two-way process. We have to recognise and celebrate our diversity. We need to create an environment to strengthen relations in the workplace, in places of worship and the community, wherever we can. We need to have a process of cohesion that is important and the empowerment of communities so that they can engage.
	When we give the example of state-run schools in Tower Hamlets, we are not talking about Islamic schools, faith schools, or Jewish schools. Even the state-run schools have 98 per cent children from one community, so it is wrong just to target faith schools. If we go to Bradford, Leicester or Southall we will find state-run schools with 98 or 99 per cent of children from one community. So community cohesion needs to be taught and promoted, but in every school. We all need to do it. I was speaking in Nottingham yesterday and I said that we have to open up our mosques every Friday for a samosa and cup of tea for every member of the community who wants to come in, because there is nothing to hide. It is such misunderstandings, whether in the media or through politicians, that lead to people thinking that there is an alien community.
	On that issue I could not understand why the Muslim community has suddenly become a burden in society when we all recognise that during the Second World War Muslims gave their lives to save the way of life of our democracy. There are cemeteries in Woking commemorating Muslims who died for Britain fighting against the fascists and the Nazis. Muslims were part of the British society that helped to rebuild this country's economy after the Second World War—in the steel and textile industries—and they have been very good contributors to British society.
	Very recently, because of a few criminals, because of a few who were given time on television and in our newspapers to provoke entire communities—andalso to insult and demonise our religion and communities—we have this huge debate. The Muslim community and the Association of Muslim Schools welcome any opportunity to be able to meet requirements for community cohesion and I am delighted to support the amendment.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I would like to go back to the beginning of this debate. When I read this amendment, I was absolutely joyful because it seemed to me that in an amazing way, starting with the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, tabled, which had enormous point to it, we were getting to the point of what the whole of this semi-argument has been about; that is, to have an inclusive education system. One of the best ways to do this is to build on the strengths we already have in the community. There are huge strengths in the faith schools and in the plans that the Government's plans involving an extension of trust schools, and there are other ways of doing this. I congratulate everybody who signed up to the two major amendments that we are discussing.
	Governors of schools will also welcome this but I must nudge the Minister on one concern I have. When more trust schools are set up, the promoters of these schools are going to have rather more rights in appointing the governors of that school, and the number of elected parent governors will go down. I would have thought that the aim of everything we have talked about is to get the local community much more cohesive and I hope that even more school governors will come from the local community. Joining-up and the use of extended schools are very well thought-through plans for just how things are going to operate for the benefit of the whole community, as well as for children in the schools. I also support the idea of language teaching and the various other ways in which local communities can join together.
	I doubt whether we could have had this debate a year or two ago, as the tensions were just too high. The very fact that, since the noble Lord, Lord Baker, moved his original amendment, everybody has got down to seeking the most proactive, effective way forward reflects very well on your Lordships' House and the Government, so I congratulate them. I hope that we will look to the approach proposed. I have to say that there have probably been too many education Bills, even during my time in this House, but for those who do not believe that the voluntary approach will work there will be other occasions when we can review its effectiveness. We underestimate the ingenuity and spiritual approach of those of varied nationalities and religions—and those with no religion—involved in our community who want to make a success of all the talent we have in this country.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I am very pleased to return to this debate with an amendment that is the result of the best spirit of consensus. I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have supported the amendment, beginning with my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour. However, it is thanks largely to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that the amendment before us has materialised, and thanks to the combined efforts of the noble Lords who signed up to the amendment that such consensus has been achieved. I do not think that the media or most people in the world outside have any idea, or will ever know, much of what has gone on behind the scenes over the past week, which is what has brought us to this consensus. We were expecting a government amendment but are pleased that one has not surfaced. Following the remarks made by the Secretary of State for Education after Report last week, we on these Benches were very wary of any kind of quota system. While I am sure that the Minister would have handled it responsibly, we are not so confident in his potential successors.
	Briefly, Amendment No. 3, in my name, is a probing amendment to ensure that new schools will be expected to set out in their proposal their plans for fostering community cohesion. I am sure that the Minister can assure me that that would be a matterof routine. These amendments offer a hugely constructive way forward in how greater integration of faith schools can be achieved. While it is the integration of faith schools that has come under scrutiny in recent weeks in public debate, it is clear that the successful future of a cohesive society cannot be the responsibility of faith schools alone. That is why I am so pleased that these amendments will apply to all schools, not just faith schools, and will form part of their inspection regime. It is right that this is an enterprise taken on by all in the education system, and, I should add, by all of us outside the education system as well.
	The amendments germanely link well-being to community cohesion. I applaud that sentiment. It is clear that the future well-being of our nation depends on greater integration and interaction within communities. That is the right step forward. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that these measures are introduced and applied with some rigour. Community cohesion among the next generation of young Britons is of critical importance and we should expect all faith communities and those without a religious faith among us to set an exemplary example. I for one, in my personal capacity, shall be watching this like a hawk.
	In the context of this Bill, I believe that this amendment strikes the right balance between parental choice, school autonomy and community cohesion through social responsibility. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, is absolutely right. This is going to be a local effort. It is about involvement with parental governors, which has to be the right way forward.
	These amendments provide the perfect incentive to engender social responsibility. Legislation is at its best where it expresses an expectation of a standard, provides an audit on that expectation and trusts people themselves to act upon it themselves, and yet achieves that without the complex rigidity of a quota system. I am proud to have been able to assist in its success and I am pleased that the Minister has been able to abandon his previous position and give his support to this side of the debate. The motto of these amendments could well be, "Integration, not intervention". I ask noble Lords to support these amendments, which will enhance the efforts of schools in playing their crucial role in spreading the values of tolerance that will foster community cohesion.
	During the passage of the Bill we have had a full, open and often very frank debate about an extremely important and, for some, very difficult subject. We should thank my noble friend Lord Baker for initiating the debate. This is a classic example of this House, as it is currently constituted, being free to express a whole cross-section of views, openly and without fear or favour.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, we are debating Amendments Nos. 7, 19 and 24 separately from Amendment No. 12, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, which concerns admissions to faith schools. But, as Amendment No. 12 has the same genesis, if I may put it that way, I need to explain how we have got to where we are with these amendments.
	When we debated the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, at Report stage, I emphasised the importance that the Government attach to all schools, including faith schools, promoting community cohesion. I should say to my noble friend Lord Peston— who I am delighted to see has joined us in our deliberations—that the Bill already makes reference to community cohesion, specifically in respect of trusts and the new types of schools that will develop as a consequence of the Bill. I draw his attention to Clause 33(6) of the Bill which states that new foundations shall have requirements on them which, in carrying out their functions in relation to the school, must promote community cohesion.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I believe that it is perfectly possible for schools, including faith schools, to promote community cohesion in exactly the kinds of ways set out by my noble friend Lady Morris when she quoted from guidance issued by the department. Of course, we want to see that take place to a higher degree in future.
	As to admissions, in our earlier debates I welcomed the Church of England's decision that its new schools will offer places within their local community in addition to those made available to declared Anglican families. I said that if there was a sufficient consensus for such a policy—and I was careful to say "if there was a sufficient consensus"—then the Government would be prepared to introduce a local authority power, but emphatically not a duty, in respect of admissions to other new faith schools. I undertook that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and I would consult with the other political parties, with MPs and Peers with an interest in this matter, and with the leaders of the faith communities before deciding on our way forward.
	We have undertaken those consultations. Having done so, as the House is now well aware, we have decided that the best and most effective way to promote community cohesion is to lay a duty to promote community cohesion on the governing bodies of all schools. This will of course extend beyond faith schools, whether new or existing, and will embrace all schools whatever their admissions policies. We believe that this will make it far more effective.
	My noble friend Lady David and the nobleEarl, Lord Onslow, asked about the definition of "cohesion". An effective definition is already available in the documentation issued by the Home Office in its publications on community cohesion. This defines "community cohesion" as,
	"the appreciation and positive valuation of the diversity of people's different backgrounds and circumstances",
	and the development of,
	"strong and positive relationships...between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and within neighbourhoods".
	That takes up the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, about relationships between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and within neighbourhoods.
	I believe that the whole House would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that those are immensely worthwhile objectives which we should be seeking to promote and it is to the advantage of our society that they should be advanced in schools and there should be some teeth behind the promotion of those duties. That is why the new duties will be supported by new inspection requirements—to give them that force.
	My right honourable friend and I are grateful to all those who have helped us to develop an effective way forward and which is encompassed in the amendment before us. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who speaks with the authority of a former chief inspector, set out the case for this approach most powerfully. We also appreciate the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lord Ahmed. I also thank the leaders of the faith communities, who are strongly supportive of this approach.
	Ofsted also endorses the proposed approach—both the new duty on schools to promote community cohesion, and the new role for Ofsted in monitoring it. I have discussed this issue in detail with Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools, Christine Gilbert, who was until last month chief executive of Tower Hamlets Council and so brings considerable personal experience to bear in this area. In her confirmatory letter to me she says:
	"I welcome your proposal that Ofsted should be asked to judge the extent to which learners contribute to community cohesion; and that in doing so we should assess both the education of pupils and how the school works with others in the community to achieve this.
	I believe that it will be possible for inspectors to make a judgement on this matter by drawing on evidence including, but not restricted to, self evaluation from the self evaluation form (SEF); and that this will be possible while retaining the overall balance and focus of the inspection".
	We have the powerful endorsement of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector and, taking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about how this will be reported through to Parliament regularly, the chief inspector makes an annual report to the Secretary of State which is laid before Parliament and which encompasses all of the areas of Ofsted's inspection activity during the course of the year. Ofsted also publishes periodic thematic reports and we believe that this would be an appropriate area for one of Ofsted's reports in due course. They are of course published and subject to debate in this House and in the other place.
	In response to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on the steps that the Government take to follow up Ofsted reports, he will know that the Government have not been dilatory in following up the Ofsted report in respect of the particular private Islamic school in Sussex that he referred to. There was a full parliamentary Statement on the action that Ofsted and the Government have taken in response to that report and we believe that the public authorities have risen to their responsibilities in that regard. I should stress that David Bell's remarks, which the noble Lord cited, were in respect of private Islamic schools and it is precisely in those schools that we have powers of enforcement where they do not meet the required standards. In the particular case that he mentioned, we have made it clear that we are ready to exercise to the full those powers of enforcement if the standards of education do not meet the required level.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, that is simply not correct. Where Ofsted reports unfavourably on the standards in a private Islamic school, enforcement action follows and there are set procedures to ensure that that takes place.
	Thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, Ofsted already reports on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, assesses personal development and well-being and evaluates learners' contribution to the community. In doing so, inspectors already pick up on aspects of a school's work which contribute to community cohesion; the measures we are debating build on that. However, having an explicit reference in legislation will, we believe, ensure that all schools will be held to account for their contribution in this important aspect. My department will work with Ofsted to determine what changes will be necessary to the inspection framework and supporting documents, such as the self-evaluation form, to make this a reality.
	The new focus on community cohesion through school inspection will enable the tremendous work that is already taking place in many of our schools across the country to be recognised and shared. For example, we know of a wide range of school-linking projects: children and their families from diverse ethnic, cultural, social and religious backgrounds who might normally not meet because they live in an attend schools in different areas are able to work and play together through joint assemblies, visits and activities. Many schools also encourage visits by leaders of other faiths to increase understanding of different religions. To cite one example, the Tower Hamlets Inter Faith Forum is working in partnership with secondary schools and the local standing advisory council on religious education to develop a model for supporting religious education and community cohesion across the borough by encouraging faith leaders to visit schools. Three schools are currently piloting the project, and the borough is looking to take this forward more widely.
	The new focus for school inspection will also identify schools that need to do more. Here I pick up the remark of my noble friend Lady Morris about there being an impetus to defined activities which will see that the duty to promote community cohesion is taken seriously. Schools should do more through their curriculum delivery, including education outside the classroom; they should do more through developing partnerships and effective working with other bodies; and they should do more through the professional development of staff, among other things.
	Prompted by Ofsted's findings and by recommendations on areas for improvement, schools will be expected to take appropriate action. They will need to reflect the progress made on these actions in updating the self-evaluation form. The school improvement partners will challenge and support the school in making any necessary improvements, and schools will need to inform parents about this progress through the school profile.
	We believe that this is an effective way forward. We are extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for bringing Amendment No. 3 forward, and I strongly commend Amendments Nos. 7, 19 and 24 to the House.

The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, Before the Minister sits down, can he explain what would happen if a school was top of the exam league but failed to make any effort to promote community cohesion? Would it be closed down? What punishment would there be? What effect could anyone have if that were the case, which is perfectly possible?

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: The amendment relates to Clauses 7 to 14 about competition for establishing new schools. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we on these Benches have been arguing in favour of local authorities having as much right to put forward proposals for new schools as any other organisation or institution. In Committee, my noble friend Lady Williams argued very coherently for promoting a level playing field between local authorities and other organisations and institutions that are, particularly under Clauses 7 and 8, encouraged to put forward proposals for new schools.
	In Committee and at Report, we tabled amendments to open up the competition between local authorities. We also argued for the deletion of Clause 8 which, as we argued then and continue to argue, imposes unduly restrictive constraints on local authorities. Clauses 7 and 8 are only about putting forward proposals for a competition for a new school. Decisions are then taken as to which of the proposals may go forward. We have been arguing that local authorities should have the right to put forward a proposal for a community school on the same sort of basis as the other institutions being encouraged to do so by this Bill.
	Clause 8 was inserted as part of a set of compromises agreed within the Commons. It essentially allows local authorities to establish community schools only when that local authority has achieved the top rating of excellent in the local authority performance ratings. Only 11 authorities out of 145 have achieved that rating. Local authorities are otherwise allowed to put forward a proposal only with the permission of the Secretary of State, and then subject to a lot of further conditions relating to the proportion of foundation and voluntary-aided or controlled schools already existing in the area. We seek on this occasion not to eliminate Clause 8 but to ease the criteria so that authorities getting the top two ratings in local authority performance assessment will be allowed to put forward proposals for community schools.
	The amendment would retain the Secretary of State's control over proposals put forward by authorities achieving only a fair or poor rating. We thus meet the criteria of one objection put forward at Report to our proposals then, when the Minister said:
	"I do not accept that a local authority should have an unfettered right, however bad its track record, to promote schools which it more directly manages. A local authority with a poor track record should commission those with better prospects of success—be they a parents group or an education foundation—to take on the task by means of a trust or a voluntary-aided school or an academy".—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 674.]
	On this occasion, we accept that those with a poor track record should not be allowed to enter the competition. We ask that those with a good track record—the good and the excellent—should be allowed to do so. This amounts to approximately 100 of 145 authorities, cutting out those that have a poor track record.
	I stress again that we are arguing only about who may put forward proposals for the competition. The competition then goes forward, and it is not necessarily the proposal put forward by the local authority that is chosen. The local authority is one of the contestants and the competition is decided bythe adjudicator. We argued last time that local authorities, elected democratically by those who pay council tax—a good part of council tax pays for schools in the area—should know what the local community wants. It is right and proper that they have the chance to make known what they thinkthat is.
	I also find it astonishing in the week after the Government have published their White Paper on local government, which asks local authorities to take more responsibility, that in the heart of the Bill we have a clause that prevents them from taking responsibilities which I believe are their democratic right. I beg to move.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I support what my noble friend has just said. To me it is astonishing that the House has virtually emptied, having given itself great satisfaction in passing an amendment—or at least getting the Government to agree to it—about promoting community cohesion. Many have left the House at the very point at which the issue of how many community schools are going to survive in this country comes to the centre of the debate. What an astonishing paradox that is.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, pointed out, the tremendous achievement of our comprehensive, local authority schools has been precisely in creating community schools. The whole idea of comprehensive schools was to bring about such cohesion, because faith is not the only issue that might divide a society; there is also class, income, background, gender and race. Over the past 40 years, these community schools have made an astonishing contribution to community cohesion in this country.
	Having satisfied themselves with putting a couple of words into the Bill—with, admittedly, as the Minister has articulately pointed out, some obligation on the inspectors to ensure that that means something—a part of this House then leaves before the crucial element of the Bill is discussed: how many of our community schools will be permitted, under the Bill, to survive.
	In our amendment we are proposing something simple. The local authorities that could be permitted to put forward a proposal for a new community school or community special school should include not just the very thin group at the top that are described as "excellent", but the rather broader group described as both "excellent" and "good". I must ask your Lordships to consider for a moment whether we are applying those criteria to all the other schools that will be part of the pattern of education under the terms of the Bill. The Edinburgh study published in May 2006 pointed out that the academies so far in existence, despite all the extra money that has been lavished upon them, had achieved less than a 1 per cent improvement on the position of the associated previous community schools. I pointed out to this House only recently that the closest parallel we have to the proposed trust schools, the charter schools of America, have actually produced less successful standards in literacy and numeracy than the schools they succeeded.
	We have pointed out from these Benches that the single most successful educational system in the whole of Europe, according to the OECD—a pretty independent and impeccable source—is the comprehensive system in Finland. It is far ahead of virtually any other European country and sadly a long way ahead of this country. It has been argued that Finland is a small country. Yes, it is. It is also amazingly cohesive and educationally successful.
	We have tended not to look too closely at the relatively better results of our Scottish colleagues, in terms of the proportion going on to higher education, staying on, achieving in schools and so on, in what is still almost entirely a genuinely comprehensive system, not one that has been raddled by political football matches in the way that has been in true in the United Kingdom.
	My first point is that we ought to consider above all—I believe that the Minister is very concerned about this and always has been—what constitutes a good school. Surely the criteria we apply to good schools, whether trust schools, academies or CTCs, should also be the criteria we apply to community schools. That means we should include the good alongside the very small group called "excellent", and that should be true across the whole spectrum of education.
	My second point has already been made effectively by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford. What is proposed runs directly contrary to the promises made by the Government in the White Paper on local government. In it we give local government some extra, rather unattractive, powers to impose fixed penalties. In this Bill, we take away from local authorities a much more significant power, the power to run a substantial number of schools in their own communities, thereby making a joke of the Government's recent promises to devolve much more power to local authorities.
	Thirdly, on community cohesion, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is right to say that words, admittedly supported by the inspectors in this case, are not much of a substitute for a structure of education that puts the community and community cohesion at its heart. We are trading a serious system for a passel of promises. Fourthly, but not least important, we have a serious problem of trying to attract enough good teachers to stay in our schools and enough even better teachers to take on the huge responsibilities of headship. We know that, at least in London and other great cities, it is now extremely difficult to find a good head teacher.
	In our previous debate on community cohesion, as in so many debates on this Bill, we once again placed responsibility on the teacher and on the head teacher. If you add up the responsibilities that we now place, morally and legally, on head teachers, it is hardly surprising that so few people are willing to come forward to bear such huge burdens, with so little assistance. The evidence is clear that without the support of local authorities and their inspectors and the support that one gets from a good county hall, it becomes even harder to become a head teacher—and that becomes a very lonely activity indeed. We have not begun to thank our teachers and head teachers for the huge endeavours that they have made and for their successes that they have to their credit, whether in secular or faith schools.
	We have a brilliant, articulate and extremely helpful Minister. If he was not there, this Bill would have had a very much rougher time getting through the two Chambers of Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Peston, whose honesty always gets the better of him, has implied, quite a few passionate critics of the Bill have decided that the better course is simply to stay away and let it happen, because they feel that it would be futile to try at this late stage to change it by more than minor ways.
	In my view, this Bill will prove to be a disaster. There will be constant competition under it. The fine words about fair admissions and all the rest are, I am sure, sincerely meant, but they will turn out to be in conflict with the deep, underlying principles of the Bill, including sponsorship of trust schools, introducing the private sector, and so on. It will be very difficult to square that circle.
	I end on a personal note. It is incredible that a Labour Government should be bringing forward this Bill. It is more than incredible; I find it heartbreaking.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 5 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 6. I am a secularist and a humanist. I am an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and a vice-president of the British Humanist Association. However, I believe in the right of everyone to believe in and to practise the religion of their choice. I am glad that we live in a very tolerant society and I want to keep it that way. I think that those without religious beliefs also have rights, but I object when people with religious beliefs seek to impose those views and their lifestyles on people who do not share them. That is particularly unacceptable when it comes to employment. Our amendments are all about that.
	Unless Clause 37 is amended or removed altogether, discrimination based on religion will become lawful for head teachers in voluntary-controlled religious schools that are controlled by local authorities and for teaching assistants in faith schools controlled by churches. In future, if this clause stands, it will permit the requirement that head teachers be reserved teachers and it will be possible for them, however talented, to be discriminated against on grounds of their religious opinions, their attendance or not at worship, and even their private lives where none of those issues has hitherto been of any concern.
	What is the reason for those changes? The Minister referred to the,
	"constructive dialogue that we have had with faith communities".—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 737.]
	What consultation has there been with those representing persons who could be disadvantaged? Surely the person appointed should be the best qualified professionally to do the job rather than one who is or claims to be religious? What transitional provisions will there be for those already employed in regard to transfers or promotion? Even assuming head teachers' security is not threatened in their present appointments, the career progression of non-religious teachers will be blighted. Competent and aspiring teachers will not be able to seek promotion unless willing to become, or at least pretend to become, a believer in an appropriate religion.
	Clause 37 also makes it lawful for there to be discrimination on a religious basis in regard to non-teacher posts in voluntary-aided schools. It may be claimed that that will not apply to all non-teaching jobs because of the requirement in employment regulations that there should be a genuine occupational requirement, but the extent to which discrimination is permitted under the requirement is largely untested. Many of the staff involved will be relatively poorly paid. Alternative jobs in the same locality may be hard to find and the difficulty and expense involved in challenging an attempted reclassification may be almost impossible for them. Moreover, reclassification of such jobs, perhaps calling them pastoral assistants, if they are told to hand out prayer books, may be fairly easy for an over-zealous religious administration.
	From such inquiries as I have been able to make in the limited time since the Bill was amended to include Clause 37, I gather that there has been no consultation with the teaching unions, or with the GMB, the union to which many of the non-teaching staff belong, and yet those changes will affect many employees, immediately in some cases and also into the future. They would appear to be contrary to the EU employment anti-discrimination directive and also possibly to the requirements of our own sex discrimination legislation. It is understood that Catholic schools are already having difficulty in recruiting sufficient head teachers of their faith. I also understand from the general secretary of the National Union of Head Teachers that there is already a shortage of head teachers. Indeed, he says, the situation is reaching crisis point, and he asked whether the Government are aware of that.
	Church attendance has been declining and that trend seems set to continue. Clause 37, unless removed or amended, will increasingly privilege a dwindling group of religious teachers while discriminating ever more acutely against the majority who are non-religious. That is even more unacceptable in the light of the stated government policy that new faith schools should be inclusive and should offer places to pupils from the families of other faiths or none. The funding will come from taxpayers, an increasing number of whom are secular.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, speaking on Report at cols. 718 to 719, seemed proud of the fact that the Church of England schools are community schools. We heard more about that this afternoon. He referred to them as neighbourhood schools. He supported the idea of25 per cent of places being available to the new schools on the basis of local rather than religious priority. I am sure that many noble Lords were pleased to hear that. Of course we welcome the idea of neighbourhood schools, but that is surely all the more reason for not discriminating when it comes to employing school staff. Surely professional ability, commitment and competence must be the criteria on which school appointments are made.
	If the Bill becomes law, including Clause 37, in a short space of time all the new faith schools will employ, in any capacity, only staff who are or profess to be believers in their faith. Then it may gradually become the norm in existing faith schools, which will add to the divisiveness that the Government are anxious to avoid. I hope that the Minister will agree to reconsider the clause and that there will be consultations with the unions representing those who are likely to be disadvantaged before proceeding further with the changes envisaged.
	The Minister this afternoon paid tribute to the outstanding work of head teachers and teachers generally. I hope that he will bear in mind those achievements when considering the clause. I beg to move.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend's amendment because I believe that we have created a tangled web here and they do not have any place in law. I have two brief but important concerns. First, if this were law, people may be inclined to pretend to be something that they are not—that is, religious—to get the job or to retain a job. The reality of the clauses is a signal to faith schools that they can build requirements into job specifications, leaving the unsuccessful candidates to bring tribunal cases challenging the faith school. As we all know, appeal cases are very difficult. There is no statutory agency in this case to provide support for claimants. That is why I am so concerned to support my noble friend's amendment.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I appreciate the strength of feeling of my noble friends against faith schools generally. That is a perfectly proper view for them to hold and I respect it. With respect, however, I point out that they have hugely exaggerated the impact of these amendments. I hope I may explain how, but itis simply not correct that there has not been consultation.
	Voluntary-controlled schools are religious schools. They are schools which are maintained almost entirely by the Church of England because of their faith character. The issue at stake is a legal uncertainty about whether the head teacher of schools that are already Church of England religious schools can or cannot be appointed with reference to a faith requirement. As the right reverend Prelate said, it appears that it is possible to do that at the moment but it is not absolutely clear. This amendment clarifies the fact that a Church of England voluntary-controlled school is actually able to appoint its head teacher to maintain the ethos of the school.
	However, even under this amendment, and this is at the discretion of the governing body—of course the governing body will make a decision about whether this is going to lead to a dearth of candidates—it is highly unlikely that a governing body is going to pass over an outstanding candidate because of the faith requirement if they believe that the need could be met in a different way. The amendment allows only heads to be reserved teachers, even in voluntary-controlled schools, where they also teach religious education, which particularly meets the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, who said she could accept that there would be a case for it where these teachers in question teach religious education, but not beyond.
	It is specifically because of that factor that we allow these reserved posts to come about. The case which has been made to us particularly applies to primary schools because a large proportion of voluntary-controlled schools are primary schools. Not having this flexibility at the moment is making it difficult for small primary schools, which is a large proportion of voluntary-controlled schools, to adequately arrange their teaching staff to ensure that they have sufficient teachers who can maintain the ethos of the school and teach religious education in those schools.
	To reiterate the point of the right reverend Prelate: if a school chooses to appoint the head teacher as a reserved teacher, this appointment will count towards the one-fifth of the teaching staff who are already permitted to be appointed as reserved teachers under the 1998 Act. I know the noble Baroness does not approve the 20 per cent requirement at the moment but this does not expand that requirement at all.
	I believe that this is a modest amendment which clarifies the existing law in respect of faith schools. There is no great plot here to introduce faith requirements for the head teachers of other schools. I would also like to stress that our proposal will include transitional provisions in the commencement order for Clause 37 to provide that the change to Section 60(6) will not take effect for any non-teaching staff in post at the date of commencement. The unamended Section 60(6) will continue to apply to such staff, and also to head teachers who are in post at the moment.
	The other amendments that I have tabled refer to staff other than teachers to whom it is now permissible to apply a faith test. The case for those amendments is very simple. Since the 1998 Act, particularly in the past two or three years, there has been substantial reform of the workforce in schools to provide for many more support staff and to encourage schools to diversify their workforce so that a wider range of staff can carry out the wider range of activities that we want to see. That includes, not least, the Every Child Matters type of agenda, which will require pastoral staff and all kinds of other support staff. We also need staff to carry out the clerical and administrative jobs that have hamstrung teachers for too long.
	As those reforms have taken place, we have been concerned to ensure that voluntary-aided schools are not unduly restricted in their capacity to use a religious test in appointing support staff who have a pastoral mission directly related to the school ethos, in exactly the same way as they can appoint teachers.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 10 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 11. This is a repeat of an amendment we tabled on Report and I have to say that my arguments in its favour have not changed. Members on these Benches contend that the Government are introducing, through this Bill and the new draft admissions code currently under consultation, very considerable changes in admissions procedures. These new arrangements have been introduced precisely because the Government are worried about the degree of social segregation that has been emerging as a result of the current admissions arrangements. Since the Government now propose that more schools should be in a position to control their own admissions within the context of the local admission forum being subject to adherence to the new code of practice, and since research shows that allowing schools to be their own admissions authority has in the past led to greater social segregation, there is a strong case for reviewing how well the arrangements are working after they have bedded down for two or three years.
	On Amendment No. 11, the Minister explained at Report stage that admission forum are specifically enjoined in the new draft code of practice to promote social equity and to serve the interests of local parents and children collectively. In Amendment No. 11 we argue that these duties should be in the Bill rather than buried in the code of practice. As foundation schools are specifically required to promote community cohesion in Clause 33(6), and the new provisions in Clause 38 will require all maintained schools to do so, it is all the more logical that admission forum—which are much better placed to make such an aspiration a reality—should also have this duty provided for them in the Bill.
	I return to Amendment No. 10. The Minister has rightly said that individual admission forum would look at the effect of the changes in their own areas and submit reports to the new schools commissioner, and that the commissioner would review the reports and then submit his own report to Parliament on how far the forums were achieving fair access after the new arrangements had been in place for two years. After the first of those reports, it would be appropriate for the Government to decide whether they needed a further independent review. We contend that since one of the main purposes of the Bill is to ensure, as stated in Clause 1,
	"fair access to educational opportunity",
	and since in pursuit of this objective the Government are introducing far-reaching changes to admissions procedures, it is only right and proper that a full, independent review of these arrangements should take place once they have had a chance to make their mark. We do not consider that the new schools commissioner, as an official employed specifically to make these things happen in the department, can be seen as sufficiently independent to conduct such a review. We need to commit ourselves now to such a review, not down the line in two or three years' time. Given the degree of concern about social cohesion that has emerged in our debates, we need an independent review even more now than we did before. I beg to move.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I watched the first two or three minutes of these exchanges on the monitor and I thought it was right for me to come into the Chamber. The normal practice is quite clear: as from three o'clock this afternoon it was known that the Statement would be taken at a convenient time after 6.45. As the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, will know, "a convenient time" is not an ambiguous phrase; it means, quite precisely, that when the group of amendments being discussed at 6.45 is completed, we then move on to the next business. If we were now unilaterally to change this practice by an argument in the House, it would not only be a question of changing normal practice but of seriously inconveniencing a lot of people. Some people are interested in the Education and Inspections Bill; others are extremely interested in the Statement; and many others, including people from outside—midwives, I might say—are very interested in the Unstarred Question which we have down for the dinner break. This would be seriously delayed if we went on to the next business.
	I strongly advise the House that we should continue in the normal way. No one more than I would have been utterly delighted if we had moved more quickly on the Bill. Sadly, that is not within my power. As we have no means of adjudicating on this issue—although we have a splendid Lord Speaker on the Woolsack—if we carry on with this discussion we will simply delay matters further, with the same outcome. I suggest that the House continues with the next business.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, I do not want to inconvenience the House but many noble Lords present at the moment have sat through most of the education debates in which important and vital matters have been discussed. It is generally agreed that the amendment I seek to move is central to the whole debate about inclusion in schools. Quite frankly, I think many noble Lords would like the debate to continue now. It may not be for the convenience of the House to have the Statement at some time after 6.45. It is for your Lordships to decide whether you now want to hear the climate change Statement now. The Statement could be taken later but the Chief Whip made a great point of saying that it is for the convenience of Members. I think that for the convenience of the majority of Members present the debate on Amendment No. 12 would be more interesting. I beg to move Amendment No. 12.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, this seems a convenient moment to repeat the Statement made in the other place by the Secretary of State. The Statement is as follows:
	"With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the independent report on the economics of climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern, commissioned by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister in July 2005. This morning Sir Nicholas published his comprehensive and compelling report. I believe it is a landmark in the debate about climate change."The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary have repeatedly stressed that climate change is an economic, energy, security and political issue, not just an environmental issue. The Stern report shows why this is true. The conclusions of the report are clear."Climate change is the greatest long-term threat faced by humanity. It would cause more human and financial suffering than the two world wars and the Great Depression put together. All countries will be affected but the poorest nations will be hit hardest."The costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action. At a minimum, a failure to tackle climate change will cost 5 per cent of global GDP. Costs could run to 20 per cent of global GDP."The window of opportunity to reverse the rise in global emissions is narrowing. The science and the economics suggest that to avoid catastrophic climate change, global carbon emissions must peak in the next 10 to 15 years."The Stern report shows how the stock of CO2 or equivalent has risen over the past 150 years to 430 parts per million. It continues to rise at about two parts per million per year. Stabilisation at between 450 and 550 parts per million would mean at least a 25 per cent cut in global emissions. For richer countries with high emissions, this would mean a cut of 60 per cent or more."Finally, climate change is not an insoluble challenge. The technologies to reduce energy demand, increase efficiency and develop low-carbon electricity, heat and transport are within grasp. The costs are manageable at around 1 per cent of global GDP. The earlier we act, across all countries and all sectors, the more we will keep costs down."Stern argues for both global co-operation and domestic action. Let me set out our initial response."First, on emissions trading, Stern argues that we must create a price signal for carbon, in particular, through the development of emissions trading schemes around the world. Emissions trading can not only ensure cost-effective reductions in emissions but could also drive tens of billions of dollars each year to put developing countries on a path to low-carbon economies. "In this area, the European Union is a world leader and it is a European solution that is key to our goals in this area. Today we are proposing that the EU commits to new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 and at least 60 per cent by 2050. And we are setting out our commitment to strengthen the European Union emissions trading scheme as the nucleus of a global carbon market. I will be discussing with business and environmental groups on Wednesday how we can develop a unified UK position for phase 3 of the scheme from 2012. I am sure we need to secure the long-term certainty of the scheme, extend it to cover new sectors—especially aviation—and link it to other emerging emissions trading schemes."Secondly, Stern argues for a stronger focus on technological company-operation, including the doubling of energy research and development support and a five-fold increase in the deployment of low-carbon technologies."In March, the Chancellor announced the creation of the Energy Technologies Institute, a new public/private partnership designed to co-ordinate £1 billion worth of research and development funding into low carbon energy technologies over the next 10 years. Today, we can announce two new companies will be joining the partnership, Scottish and Southern and Rolls Royce, taking total contributions so far to£550 million of funding—half Government, half private sector."Stern also identifies a specific need to develop low carbon transport fuels. That is why the UK has initiated a joint task force with Brazil, South Africa and Mozambique to promote the development of a regional sustainable biofuels industry in southern Africa. The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), which the UK launched in 2003, is now working in over 40 countries to develop policies and financing frameworks for investment in sustainable energy."At the Gleneagles G8 summit last year the UK was instrumental in establishing the Energy Investment Framework, led by the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks, to catalyse increased investment in energy efficiency and alternative energy sources, as well as adaptation. The UK Government are therefore pleased to announce today with President Wolfowitz of the World Bank, together with the four leading regional development banks, a partnership with the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to stimulate private sector investment through the Energy Investment Framework. President Wolfowitz and the Chancellor will co-host a conference early in February 2007 to kick off the partnership. "Third is the action to reduce deforestation, which makes up 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year—equivalent to more than the whole of the transport sector. Forests are of great global importance for climate change and biodiversity. But they are also sovereign territory of the countries whose forests they are, and only those nations can decide what happens to them. With the governments of Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, with Germany holding the presidency of the G8 and the EU, and with the World Bank and other interested parties, we will be exploring over the coming months how to mobilise global resources for sustainable forestry."Fourth is the need for adaptation. The review suggests that richer countries must provide financial support to developing countries to adapt to the changes in climate already in train. The UK Government are strongly committed to making climate risk reduction key to development activities. Contributions to the special climate change fund (SCCF), the least developed countries fund for climate change (LDCF), and the Canadian International Development Research Centre, are additional to development finance and policy as part of this drive."In all these four areas, the UK is determined to continue to show international leadership; that drive is strengthened by our domestic leadership. To be the most convincing persuaders, we must also be effective contributors. "Between 1997 and 2005, the economy has grown by 25 per cent and greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by 7 per cent. We are exceeding our Kyoto targets and are the only country on track to double them. The ambitious commitments inthe energy review to take a further 19 million to25 million tonnes of carbon out of the economy will add further impetus to the drive to reduce emissions."We have now also decided to put in place a legislative timetable to become a leading low carbon economy. Our climate change legislation will provide a clear, credible, long-term framework for the UK to achieve its long-term goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. "The Bill will be based on four pillars. For each, we will come forward with details at the time of publication of the Bill. We are in addition determined to promote the widest possible debate in this House and across the country about the contents of the Bill."The legislation will, first, put into statute the Government's long-term goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 from 1990 levels. We will also consider appropriate interim targets. We are determined to enhance Britain's competitive position and believe that business in particular will benefit from the long-term framework that it says is so important for effective investment decisions."The new legislation will, secondly, establish an independent body—a carbon committee—which will work with Government to reduce emissions over time and across the economy. We will ensure that the committee's advice is transparent, equitable and mindful of sectoral and competitiveness impacts, including the need to secure energy supplies at competitive prices."Thirdly, we believe that targets need to be accompanied by substantive measures if they are to have credibility. This legislation will, therefore, create enabling powers to put in place new emissions reduction measures to achieve our goals. "The final pillar of the legislation will be to assess what additional reporting and monitoring arrangements are necessary to support our aims of a transparent framework for emissions reductions, including reports to this House."I believe that the House and the country owe a huge debt to Sir Nicholas Stern and his staff for their outstanding work. I believe his report should be a cause for alarm but also a cause for action. It is action that the whole Government are determined to deliver—at home and abroad".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, I welcomeSir Nicholas Stern's report. Credit must go to the Treasury for taking a brave and wise lead in commissioning it, reversing its previous stance of failing to make any switch from taxing work totaxing pollution. I congratulate the Treasury on commissioning such an important piece of work and Sir Nicholas on implementing his brief very fully.
	The Statement justly credits the EU as a world leader in showing how emissions trading can drive innovation and carbon reduction. It has not been a perfect mechanism but it has been an extremely valuable start. The report is a blueprint for further action, and not just UK action. As one would expect from a former chief economist of the World Bank, the report is a blueprint for international action. I believe that it will provide the route map for the post-2012 route that follows the first round of the Kyoto negotiations. It will be a springboard for those starting to develop a framework, not just for developed nations and the EU, but for the rapidly developing nations. I particularly welcome the point about the action that the World Bank will be taking.
	The Statement contained some interesting suggestions about deforestation. I am sure that the House will benefit from knowing more about what that will mean. There is an interesting list of the nations which will be taking part; it does not include Guatemala, Belize and Mexico—although they may be in the Coalition for Rainforest Nations—which, after the Amazon basin, have the largest area of rainforest in Latin America.
	The report will make us—as businesses, as a nation and internationally—take account of the true price of things; not just the financial price but the hidden cost. Cheap goods are not so cheap if the environmental or social costs are high and hidden—particularly, in this case, the environmental costs.
	The report is particularly important; it takes the debate out of the province of scientists and environmentalists, although of course they have a critical role to play. However, the report has made it quite clear that it is for everyone, from the boardroom to the tearoom, to think about the implications, whether it is a question of future investment for large corporations or how much water to use to fill a kettle—even, indeed, what sort of kettle.
	The "act early" message is extremely important. The past decade has been marked by inaction and emissions in some sectors have risen. Transport emissions in particular have risen under this Government. Private mileage has increased because cars have become more efficient, so the overall effect is that, given the lack of investment in public transport, emissions have increased. In passing, I congratulate Defra on its Environment in Your Pocket publication. It often comes in for criticism, but that very informative publication is exactly what the public need to play a part in this important debate.
	The other people who must play an important role are the media. I do not think that today's headlines were helpful, The Evening Standard, in particular, was scaremongering about tax rises before looked at the report. The Government could take a leaf out of the book of Liberal Democrat-controlled Richmond council; it received very positive coverage for its gas-guzzler parking charges. I hope that the media will play a responsible part in pushing the agenda forward and make every effort to be informative as opposed to publishing what was called by the IPPR report, "climate porn". Some of today's headlines could have been called the same thing.
	Stern makes a very important comment on investing in research and development. He suggests doubling expenditure, from a very low base. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says about the research and development budget. It is impossible to imagine moving forward without the innovation that that research will bring. That will be key in making this a success or a failure.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am most grateful for the contributions of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. I do not think I can answer everything in detail, although I would like to make one or two points. In his final point, the noble Lord referred to taxation. All I can do is repeat what was said this morning and in the other place that people should look at what the Chancellor has done. The climate change levy was offset by national insurance, and I understand that one of the other green taxes had an offset as well. The was not used as an excuse to raise more funds; it was designed to change people's behaviour. The investment in the climate change levy was offset by national insurance.
	The noble Lord mentioned Brazil. I did not say that it was in South Africa; the fact is, Brazil is the biggest, most expert producer of bioethanol fuels, and one has to share global experience. That is the issue relating to South Africa and Mozambique, which have come forward.
	The noble Lord also asked about land. We in the UK do not have enough land for all our fuel requirements. If we used all our land, we could not grow enough for our food and fuel. He implied that we would have to import all our biofuels and then said that there was not enough land for biofuels and food. No, there is not—I accept that.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point and apologise if I misunderstood him.
	I freely accept that there will have to be arrangements for transporting biofuels around the world. Nevertheless, a start will be made to develop a large-scale, world-class biofuels industry. This cannot be done on small plots of land, hence we are using the experience of Brazil, South Africa and Mozambique.
	The noble Lord also asked about the need for a balanced supply of energy. The energy White Paper published in the summer made it clear that we want a balanced supply. We will be using fossil fuels for a considerable time, and some 20 per cent of our power comes from the nuclear industry. We have made it clear that we will not use public subsidy, but the existing nuclear supply will be phased out and the question therefore arises about replacements so that there is a balance. And it is, of course, carbon-free.
	I have not read the 700 pages and do not know if there is a mention of hydrogen. Yet—I have used this example in this House before—I have been into a dwelling in the Midlands which is fuelled by hydrogen as an experiment. There are experiments going in the UK now; they are small scale but high-level experiments and other fuels are used.
	I freely admit that I have not seen the headlines today, but sometimes the hysterical approach of the media can be counter-productive. I am not saying that every scientist in the world agrees with this, as no doubt I am about to be reminded. Yet the position on climate change, as explained today, is vastly different from what it was 10 or 20 years ago. On balance, taking the precautionary principle, we have had it set out that if we do not move on carbon—if it went up from 450 to above 550—we may not be able to get it back anyway. We have to deal with this issue. If the scientists are wrong, at least we survive. If they are right and we have done nothing about it—which we owe to the next generations—then it is a complete failure of our society.
	There will obviously be debates on this and legislation, as the Government have indicated. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said about Defra's handbook. It is incredibly easy to read, unlike some of the material put out by government departments that sometimes have a difficulty with material for general consumption. They always want to get it right, so you end up with too much detail and the message gets lost. This Defra handbook is incredibly easy to read and ought to be compulsory reading. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness said about Defra doing that, and also welcoming that it was the Treasury who commissioned the report. This goes beyond the environmental aspects, as the Statement said. It is also about security, energy and finance. The report shows, in summary, that we can deal with climate change without wrecking our economies, provided we move now. If we leave it 10 to 15 years, then, as the report makes clear, we are in a no-hope situation.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, the Minister is very good at knowing the reaction of people in the street, and in villages and towns. First, does he agree that, if this is to work, there has to be strong popular support behind it, as my noble friend Lord Taverne said, and that what the people of any country can do is address the subject of energy conservation, on which the UK has a bad record? Does he agree that there ought to be a fifth heading concerning energy conservation, which is crucial if this great aim is to be achieved?
	Secondly, does he agree, having referred to the fact that forests are the responsibility of the country in which they lie, that the idea of renting substantial parts of untouched forest land is something that should be looked at closely in terms of the international bargain between the rich world and the poor? If we are going to save the planet we have to start by saving the forests, and in many forest lands there is no money whatever to do so.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, on that last point, I cannot go beyond what I have said, other than that the Statement attempts to bring aviation into the emissions trading scheme, so that the cost of aviation pollution is paid for and will bring about a change in peoples' behaviour. As I said, plenty of trains are available for short journeys in this country and between this country and other parts of Europe in which one can probably travel faster than if one used the airports.
	As I understand it, forecasts of population growth are taken into account; but is it not also the case that when countries have good economies and economic growth, population growth decreases? This is a serious issue. It is a fact that we are using up the planet at a greater rate than we are creating more planet, if you like—and the planet is finite. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, half joked about a new ice age that has not yet happened, but if the Atlantic Gulf Stream closes down, we will soon know about a new ice age.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, while welcoming the Minister's assurance that any new green taxes would be matched by reductions in indirect taxation and his acknowledgment that everything depends on growth economies such as China and India buying into this proposal, could he assure us that providing leadership does not mean putting up taxes on business in this country in advance of those countries doing the same? Given the mobile nature of capital, will not business simply switch its investment into countries where there is no such levy or charge, whether it be a tax or a carbon trading scheme? How will the Government deal with that?

Baroness Cumberlege: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy towards community hospitals and maternity units.
	My Lords, I start by thanking noble Lords for taking part in this short debate and the Minister for answering it. He is after all, according to the Health Service Journal, the fifth most powerful person in the NHS, so I am sure he will be able to answer my questions, of which I have given notice, with ease.
	The Minister and I are united in that care should be closer to home. My father was a GP. Patients came to the house and in my home we literally had blood on the carpet. Six miles from where I live we have a much-prized community hospital in which a few years ago I had successful minor surgery. My husband's great-grandfather donated a similar hospital to the people of Lyndhurst. I have given birth to two of our three sons at home, so I think I know what care closer to home, or indeed in the home, can mean.
	It was Voltaire who said,
	"if you wish to converse with me, define your terms".
	The tools of the trade for any Government are language and it is important to be precise. In July, the Government published a sequel to their White Paper, called Our health, our care, our say. It contains a diagram which defines a community hospital asone which offers multi-use community clinics, intermediate care, integrated health and social care, or is a remodelled general hospital—presumably with or without beds.
	PCTs or trusts will argue that after closing all in-patient facilities, minor surgery and minor casualty, but retaining two or three physio sessions, the hospital is still open. That is dishonest and it does not wash with the public. The public do not recognise a multi-use clinic as a hospital. They perceive the closure of in-patient beds as a significant loss of services. So, can we agree that a community hospital is, in essence, a small local hospital with 20 to 30 beds, a range of clinics, rehabilitation, a minor surgical and a minor injuries unit? Anything less is a con. Some community hospitals have other facilities such as hospice care, or birthing centres, but they are in addition to, not instead of.
	Using my definition, which is drawn from one used by the Community Hospitals Association, out of 320 community hospitals in England, 107 are under threat and 10 have closed this year alone. This has happened when the Government have explicitly stated that,
	"community facilities should not be lost in response to short-term budgetary pressures that are not related to the viability of the community facility itself".
	Community hospitals rarely exceed their budgets. Their beds cost between a third and a half of an acute bed. They are efficiently run with committed staff. The food is edible, the infection rate low and the quality of care high, because neighbours are looking after neighbours. Reputation is everything in a small community. You never know who you are going to meet in Tesco on Saturday morning.
	The public value these hospitals and recognise that they are closing to pay off other debts—and the public have taken to the streets. Angry protestors are marching across England—in Gloucestershire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cumbria, the New Forest, Wiltshire, Shropshire and Oxfordshire. It is sad that these areas do not show up on the Secretary of State's political heat map. Few are in Labour seats. They are in market towns and rural areas—out-of-the-way places that Labour finds hard to reach. The Minister is quoted in this week's Health Service Journal as saying that some trusts are pretty inept in theway they go about consultations on service reconfiguration, presenting a fait accompli, rather than involving local people. So, being the fifth most powerful person in the NHS, and clearly concerned, what measures is the Minister going to take to ensure that PCTs listen and involve local people; and, where they have not, what is he going to do about it?
	Change requires resources. The sum of £750 million has been allocated over five years for the refurbishment and equipment of community facilities. I do not want to be ungrateful but this smacks of a Treasury initiative—Big Brother providing the wrong solution for the wrong problem. NHS LIFT and other capital schemes involving the private sector are available. It is revenue that is in short supply, not capital.
	The original benefactors, like my husband's great-grandfather, gave their hospitals to the local community. In 1948, with great generosity, they gave again to the new NHS—a health service now owned by the people. Today, that generosity is being denied to the local community. Sites are sold to pay off some remote debt unrelated to the local population. Marvellous Leagues of Friends voluntarily paint wards, make curtains and raise funds for buildings and equipment, but they cannot provide trained staff day in, day out. So, as the fifth most powerful person in the NHS, will the Minister negotiate with the Treasury to ensure that this capital fund can be used flexibly and be converted to revenue, as and when the need arises?
	I turn to the subject of birthing centres, maternity and midwife-led units. The issues are very similar. Supermarkets driven by consumer demand have realised that people want convenience, diversity and choice. Tesco and Sainsbury, having invested heavily in large stores, are now diversifying in small convenience stores, locally sited. The NHS, as always, forced into short-term expediency, is working against this social trend. It is centralising and reducing choice.
	The defence is that units close because they are not popular—that is not true. What happens is that those intent on the closure say, "We will keep this unit open but only from 9 am to 5.30 pm". Unsurprisingly, women say, "How can I guarantee my baby will respect working hours and arrive just then? I had better book elsewhere". Others are reluctant to book a place in a birthing centre which is under threat. It may not be there when the great day arrives.
	The Birth Centre Network has worked for three years to further enhance midwife-led units and establish quality standards—an initiative applauded by Stephen Ladyman, then the Minister responsible for maternity services. What progress have the Government made in funding this project?
	Today's PCTs, in turmoil, broke and pressurised to break even, see a line in their budgets and think, "Cut the birthing centre and save £0.25 million". But they fail to think of the additional costs in the high-tech maternity unit—the additional unneeded, unwanted, highly expensive interventions, not only in cash but also in health terms. Will the Minister, the fifth most powerful person in the NHS, honour the undertaking given by his colleague, Stephen Ladyman, to undertake an economic appraisal of the costs and benefits of birthing centres?
	According to the Office for National Statistics, the birth rate has been increasing for the past five years. The Government Actuary's Department predicts further increases over the 2003 birth rate. Today,18 birth centres or midwife-led units are under threat, nine have closed temporarily and three have permanently closed. In addition, other maternity units in district general hospitals are under threat. With units closing, where are these women to give birth?
	There have been shameful incidents where women in labour have been rushed from one hospital to another searching for a maternity unit—this at a time when in July Ivan Lewis, the Minister now in charge, emphasised that maternity services are a priority and that the Government will meet their manifesto commitments.
	So to my final question. The Government extol choice, which is very popular. They believe that more care should be provided closer to home, which is also popular. Therefore, can the Minister—after all, the fifth most powerful person in the NHS—explain how the Government's policies will be implemented, and when decisions are devolved and locally ignored?

Baroness Emerton: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for raising this debate. I shall speak about maternity units.
	Maternity services should be safe and of the highest quality, because, for more than 100 years, the midwifery profession has been regulated. Midwives are regulated by a set of midwives' rules and a code of conduct. Formal supervision of midwives takes place, with supervisors of midwives accountable for ensuring that all the rules are followed.
	There have been many changes in policy on who leads in the practice of childbirth, not least as a result of the input of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, into the Changing Childbirth report of 1993. However, whether hospital delivery or home delivery is the fashion, the priorities are a safe pregnancy, safe delivery of a healthy baby and a healthy mother. However, despite the regulations and supervision, all has not been well and we need to ask why.
	The United Kingdom is renowned for a very low level of maternal deaths. The national average is11.4 per 100,000 births, but, between 2002 and 2005, this figure rose dramatically, when, in Northwick Park hospital, 10 maternal deaths were recorded. This led to an investigation of maternity services by the Healthcare Commission. It identified common factors in nine of the 10 cases. They included: insufficient input from the consultant or a senior midwife, with difficult decisions often left to junior staff; failure in a number of cases to respond quickly where a woman's condition changed unexpectedly; inadequate resources; agency and locum staff; the lack of a dedicated high dependency unit; a working culture which led to poor working practices, resulting in a poor quality of care; failure to learn lessons in the unit—the trust took action following the deaths, but the working environment was such that mistakes were repeated—and failure by the trust board to appreciate the seriousness of the situation—the board was aware of the high number of deaths and should have acted sooner to rectify the problems.
	Sir Ian Kennedy, the chairman of the Health Care Commission, said that the root cause of poor performance is often weak managerial or clinical leadership, which can leave problems unidentified or unresolved; in other words, the unit has become dysfunctional. As a result of the Healthcare Commission's report, an outside team was brought in to assist in rectifying the problems. It was led by Professor Arulkumaran, head of obstetrics atSt. George's Hospital. A number of workforce streams were identified, requiring leadership and implementation by midwives and obstetricians. These have now been addressed. I highlight this tragic situation to demonstrate that, where no performance management of clinical care is in place and no accountability is being exercised through the organisation, up to and including the board members, tragedies such as this occur.
	Sadly, this is not an isolated case of performance management of clinical care not being exercised. Commissioned by the Burdett Trust for Nursing, a report was recently published by the Office for Public Management entitled, Who Cares Wins: Leadership and the Business of Caring. A companion study was produced to back the OPM report's findings, with evidence based on research by Plymouth University. Having studied a random sample of healthcare trust board minutes, researchers found that only 14 per cent mentioned direct clinical care.
	The OPM report demonstrates that the business of caring is a whole-board issue and it argues that, if a more market-driven health system is going to deliver a new NHS, patient satisfaction and customer care need equal ranking with finance, targets and outputs on board agendas. However, it also makes it very clear that critical organisational factors need to be addressed so that the business of caring is led and managed in a way which is clearly accountable and which seeks, and acts on, patients' opinions.
	The unanswered question that emerges fromthe work which the Burdett Trust for Nursing commissioned is: how will NHS trust boards be encouraged to balance finance, targets and outputs on their agendas with patient care? Who will be accountable and have the authority at board level for the performance management of clinical care?
	We surely cannot wait for units to become dysfunctional, whether they are maternity units, as in Northwick Park, or acute or mental health trusts. Patients surely deserve the highest-quality care delivered in the most cost-effective way. The strategy to introduce a dedicated person at executive board level who is accountable for the performance management of patient care is complicated, involving trust board executives and non-executives, as well as healthcare professionals.
	Will the Minister give his support to the concept of having a designated person at board level accountable for performance management of clinical care and consider making resources available for the training that will be required for executive and non-executive board members? A designated performance manager of clinical care would be in the interest of ensuring that care and compassion become part of the agenda and a high quality of care for patients.

Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Cumberlege for securing this debate about these vital services.
	As the custom of this House is to talk only about subjects that one thinks one knows something about, I shall confine my remarks to community hospitals, because, for 15 years, I had the privilege and enjoyment of working in one such hospital one day a week—in Edenbridge, in Kent. It is run by five first-class GPs and is a great morale booster for the local population and staff. They have a rather revolutionary practice: they keep the place spotlessly clean. Not only were there no complaints about cleanliness; there were no complaints about catering or patient care. That hospital is now threatened with closure, through no fault of its own.
	Community hospitals play an important role, as has been said, in the local health care system, contributing general medical care and rehabilitation after strokes and operations. It is estimated that there are 4,000 GPs working in community hospitals. On average, they are called into their hospital five times a week and carry clinical responsibility for resident patients. Community hospitals almost always stay within the constraints of their budgets set by the PCTs, but the new Department of Health system of payment by results, which pays acute trusts for the work that they do, makes no provision for the in-patient care provided by community hospitals. Acute hospitals have not been willing to share their income with the very hospitals which take their patients for rehabilitation. In the case of elderly patients, that may require an extended period.
	Indeed, community hospitals have also been very helpful to the NHS in taking patients who could not be discharged and who were therefore blocking beds. Bed blocking does three things: it prevents the admission of patients for elective operations; it diverts acute admissions to other hospitals; or it causes excessive delays in accident and emergency departments.
	Despite appeals to the Secretary of State to set a tariff for community hospitals and establish a fairer financial system between acute hospital trusts and community hospitals, the Secretary of State has stated to my friend in another place, Sir John Stanley, that community health services are outside the scope of payment by results and that funding must be negotiated locally. This proves very difficult when many acute hospital trusts and PCTs are already overspending their budgets.
	In the light of the Government's clear wish that community hospitals are not closed for short-term budgetary pressures and their wish to see community services take on more work, why can the Government not ensure that the PCTs are given the financial support to keep open the very community hospitals which fulfil their criteria? We must not let the present crisis of funding in the NHS sweep away an extremely valuable and treasured resource which will be irreplaceable.
	Many community hospitals were created by voluntary contributions and efforts and continue to be supported by their local communities. Their demise would mean this support would be lost. They have very strong and loyal support from the communities they serve and this support has been earned by many years of dedicated service. The public's strong support is quite easy to understand. The opportunity for continuity of care from the patient's own GP team, the friendlier surrounding and the proximity to the patient's home and family make them an excellent environment for recovery and rehabilitation.
	With these convincing arguments, acknowledged by the Government's 2005 election manifesto and again by their White Paper in January, can the Minister explain to the House why it is that community hospitals are still closing and why it is that many more still remain under threat of closure, especially considering the Government's wish to provide more healthcare closer to people's homes?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for the opportunity to have this debate this evening on this important topic. I am extremely flattered by the power that she and a number of other noble Lords have invested in me. What I have to do is disappoint her a little by saying that I am going to resist this overwhelming power that the Health Service Journal seems to have invested in me by succumbing to telling large parts of the NHS how to plan their local services in great detail.
	I have to say that I was mildly surprised by one or two of the speeches from the Benches opposite. I know it is a long time since they have been in Government, but they were in Government from time to time, and I thought they were now also in favour of giving a fair amount of independence to people locally. That is the principle on which I am operating.
	This Government are committed to transforming the NHS. Questions have been asked this evening about where we spent the money. One of the things we have done is invest over £1 billion in new and refurbished GP surgeries and we have opened over42 LIFT projects with another seven in procurement. These do enable local parts of the NHS to provide a wider range of services in community settings. We have had to spend a lot of this money to improve the pay and the numbers of NHS staff, to deal with the appalling fabric in parts of the hospital service that we inherited, and to tackle the extremely long waiting times that we inherited, which in some cases led to unnecessary deaths.
	So we have put a lot of money in and my understanding of many of the patient surveys, including those from the Independent Healthcare Commission, is that people who actually experience the NHS recognise the improvements made, as distinct from those who may be excited by misleading reports in the media. Patients have told us that they want more care closer to home and many professionals support this. We are committed to providing more community services in a range of settings as part of this programme.
	I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, that I do not resile in any way from the flexible definition of community hospitals that we have used. I do not think we want to go in for the kind of rigid definition that she seemed to be suggesting. That will only fetter the ability of local communities to design services which meet their local needs in a way which is suitable for today's and tomorrow's society.
	We also have a bold vision of radically improved maternity services, which I will say more about later. By 2009, all women will have a range of choices of where and how they have their baby and what pain relief they use. Every woman will have continuity of care before and after birth, provided by a midwife she knows.
	There is a clear synergy between our vision for community services and our vision for maternity services. We expect local commissioners to ensure that the new generation of community hospitals and services include in many cases good-quality maternity services. Nothing that we have said would prevent that.
	In January we published a White Paper, Our health, our care, our say, which reiterated our manifesto commitment to develop a new generation of modern community hospitals over the next five years. Listening to some speeches, one could start to assume that all community hospitals as they are today would be fit for purpose for the years to come. Some of them may be so but many need to change. I was much heartened by the fine speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, who drew attention to the fact that sometimes facilities outlive their usefulness and have to be replaced. That is part of having a mature debate about the NHS, instead of ossifying hospital services in a form which no longer meets local needs.
	In July we published Our health, our care, our community: investing in the future of community hospitals and services. I am pleased to learn that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, actually read our press notice, although I am sorry that he did not like it more. The document sets out in detail how we plan to develop new community hospitals. It announced the investment of £750 million capital funding over the next five years and gave detailed guidance to primary care trusts that wish to bid for some of that capital.
	The publication told PCTs that we want new community hospitals to be safe, effective and affordable. We want them to span primary and secondary care, a boundary that is sometimes artificial in today's age. Wherever possible, we want to see social care and other public services brought into some of these new developments. We want them to use innovative funding models and to be designed in consultation with local residents. We want to see the third sector and the independent sector play a role in the development of these new services so that they are fit for purpose in local communities.
	The department has received the first round of bids. Eleven proposals have been submitted from eight of the 10 SHAs. Officials are reviewing the submissions and collecting more information. I hope to be able to advise successful bidders and make an announcement well before the end of this year. We will move speedily to approve the bids and get things moving on the applications.
	I make no apologies for standing by the definition I gave of a community hospital.
	Some noble Lords chastised us slightly because this is a capital project not a revenue one. But the Treasury has defined capital spending, as did a number of distinguished ex-health Ministers on the Benches opposite. You cannot substitute capital for revenue in such a way. This has always been a capital scheme.
	I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that the scope of the new community facilities that we hope to see developed provides opportunities for better support for carers. They can provide opportunities to produce more help with palliative care and to support hospices. It is down to local people to decide what is fit for purpose in their community hospitals. We do not want to fetter them in taking forward those ideas.
	In September 2004, we published the maternity standard in the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services. It requires that women can choose from a range of ante-natal, birth and post-birth care services in their local area. We followed this with our manifesto commitment that by 2009 all women will have choice in this particular area. This brought forward the timescale for the implementation of key elements of the maternity standard from 10 to five years. We have outlined a lot of detail since then.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, raised the request of my former colleague, Stephen Ladyman, for an economic appraisal in developing quality standards in birth centres. In July the department commissioned the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit to conduct a three-year study into the effectiveness, acceptability and efficiency of maternity units. The study will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of midwife-led units and consultant-led units. This part of the study will start next year and will be completed in spring 2008. The department has also agreed to write to the Healthcare Commission, suggesting that once the conclusions in the study have been published, it should work with the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Birth Centre Network to develop operating standards for stand-alone midwife-led maternity units. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, that the safety of mothers and babies has to be paramount in this particular area.
	It is sometimes worth concentrating on a particular area that shows what can be done. In some places the kind of service we want to see is already happening. The Crowborough Birthing Centre is a small unit adjacent to Crowborough War Memorial Hospital, a community hospital. The birthing centre has six beds, is open 24 hours a day and is run by a dedicated team of experienced midwives. It offers just the high quality of care we would all like to see.
	David Nicholson was somewhat misquoted: he is not setting out to close maternity services. He was getting the NHS and others to address the fact that sometimes we need to look at the way particular services are provided in some parts of the country, and may need to reshape those services. Whether we use "reconfiguration" or some other term, it means that we must make them safe and fit for purpose.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I was hoping—and am still hoping—that he would find time to deal with the point made about the wholly improper meeting referred to by my noble friend Lord Fowler. I hope the Minister will leave time for that. Will he?

Lord Warner: My Lords, one minute has been taken out of my time by the interventions of the excitable noble Lord and his colleague. I hope to be allowed to address the concerns raised by all noble Lords in this debate. I was going to get round to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and I have another minute in which to speak. Let us stay calm and he will have an answer, but first I want to address the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, about unbundling the tariff. Tomorrow there will be guidance on this posted on the Department of Health website.
	I was rather looking forward to dealing with the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Let me reassure him that I was at the meeting. As a Minister of State I do not have any special advisers, nor does my good friend the honourable Mr Andy Burnham. The Secretary of State has special advisers in the same way that other Cabinet Ministers have done under successive governments. What I would say to the noble Lord—and I was a civil servant when he was the Secretary of State—is that I respect the fact that when he was in that position, he and his colleagues would, quite rightly, discuss areas where there might be public anxieties about changes of policy. I was in attendance on some of those occasions and I am going to respect the confidentiality of the discussions, just as I am going to respect the confidentiality of the discussions I had on the occasion he mentioned with my political colleagues. That is a perfectly sensible way for any government to conduct themselves.
	In conclusion, over the next few years the NHS will be transformed by the extra money we have put in and we will provide vastly improved maternity services in conjunction with a new generation of community hospitals. We have had an interesting debate and I am sorry it has not satisfied all noble Lords in terms of its outcome.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 12—at last. For those of us interested in education it has been a long day's journey into night. This amendment differs from the amendment tabled last week by myself, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and the noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Taverne, which your Lordships will recall was much more prescriptive. It gave the Secretary of State the power to insist on a25 per cent quota. This amendment does not do that.
	Perhaps I may draw the House's attention particularly to subsection (2), which states that when a new school is set up:
	"The local education authority for the area in which the school is to be established may, if they so desire, specify that up to"—
	not necessarily the full amount—
	"25 per cent of places at the school shall be allocated to pupils who do not follow the religion or religious denomination of the school".
	That is the nub of the amendment. It goes on to state that where the local authority does not specify a certain percentage because it is prepared to grant a totally exclusive faith school, the Secretary of State can call that in if there is significant opposition from residents. That is the amendment we are about to discuss.
	I had better turn off my mobile phone—though you never know, it may be God. I apologise to noble Lords for that little intermission.
	The point I want to make is that the amendment we have tabled today was the Government's policy just a week ago. It was the policy enunciated at the Dispatch Box by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on17 October when he said that, on the undertaking that I withdraw my amendment, the Government intended to,
	"bring forward an amendment on Third Reading along the following lines. We do not believe it right for there to be a mandatory national 25 per cent requirement...However, we wish to give local authorities, in their role as guardians of community cohesion"—
	that is where the term came from in these debates, and it is absolutely right—
	"a power to require that new faith schools have admissions policies which include the offer of at least 25 per cent of places on the basis of local preference, not faith preference alone".
	That was the policy that the Government intended to follow. The Minister also said:
	"We also wish to confer a reserve power on the Secretary of State—a power, not a duty—to act in this matter where a local authority's decisions give rise to a sufficient body of local objections".—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 738.]
	The Minister has already said in reply to an earlier amendment that that was conditional upon his securing a degree of consensus. He said that he was very sorry but that he could not secure a degree of consensus. I will come back to that later, if I may.
	So, what I have tabled is in effect what the Government's policy was seven days ago. Indeed, so enthusiastic was the Secretary of State for this policy that he actually leaked no less than a Cabinet document to the Sunday Times of the day before last Monday revealing that this was the Government's policy. He made a speech on that Monday saying that faith schools must cross ethnic and faith barriers. As late as Wednesday of last week, one of my friends went to see him and he confirmed that on the following day the Government would table those two amendments. However, on Thursday night everything changed. Unfortunately, I was on the way to Oxford in a coach and it was very difficult to find out what was happening. But the Government completely changed tack. They abandoned their principle and their policy. One might ask why there was such a huge U-turn, because it was certainly the fastest U-turn in political history. I think Churchill said that the best diet in the world is your own words. But when Churchill said that, he thought that there would be a decent interval between the utterance and digestion. In this case there was not; it was a mere matter of seven days.
	The reason why the policy was withdrawn is very clear. There was a very effective Catholic campaign—brilliantly effective—headed by the Archbishop of Birmingham, who wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph saying that this was the thin end of the wedge—those were his very words. Of course, it was not the thin end of the wedge, because the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is gifted in these matters, said very clearly that,
	"there is no question of requiring this admission arrangement in respect of existing faith schools where it does not already apply".—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 739.]
	The Government made very clear when they said they were going to table these amendments that in no way were they to apply to existing faith schools. But the view of the Catholic Church, led by the Archbishop of Birmingham—of whom I am an admirer, because he has managed to secure a complete surrender by the Government without conceding an inch—is exactly the same as it was seven days ago. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, is nodding. I hope that the Minister has noted that the noble Lord nodded when I said that. He is the closest that we get in this House to a Catholic authority.
	The Archbishop of Birmingham, in an interview last Friday, said, "If we are going to have any new Catholic schools—though we have no such proposals because we cannot afford any new schools at the moment—but if we have any new Catholic schools, we will determine what the demand is locally for such schools". If they decide that there are 200 pupils in Bury St Edmunds who want to have Catholic schools, they will then put forward a proposal for a Catholic school for 200 pupils in Bury St Edmunds. Then he said, "When we fill that lot, if there is any spare, we will add a few more"—that is their present policy. So I think that the Archbishop of Birmingham—and I hope that the noble Lord will take this back to him—is a brilliant negotiator. He has got the Government to surrender without yielding an inch. I think that the Government ought to use him in Iraq. I think that he would do a marvellous job there. Congratulations to him.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, with great respect, my amendment seven days ago applied only to new faith schools and not existing faith schools. In the past 10 years the Catholic Church has opened only two new faith schools—two primary schools, one in Plymouth and one in Milton Keynes—and it has no proposals to start any more Catholic schools. The amendment affected only new faith schools, not existing schools. It would not have affected existing schools.
	I think the Catholic Church should be congratulated because it adopted the technique of LBJ—Lyndon Baines Johnson. He had a wonderful technique. He said that in any dispute you must put your opponent at a disadvantage immediately. The way you do that is you must get him to deny that he has had carnal knowledge of a pig. Because as soon as he has to deny that, everyone begins to believe, "Well, could he have had carnal knowledge of a pig? My God!". So the immediate reaction would be, "Could it be extended to all faith schools?", and LBJ would be quite proud of the Archbishop of Birmingham.
	It is rather ironic that the main beneficiaries of the Catholic Church's victory are not the Catholic schools but the Muslim schools, which have rather sensibly remained very quiet and let the Catholics fight their cause. I do not think that that is quite what the Pope had in mind.
	I also had to debate with the Catholics when I was Secretary of State. I did not deal just with an archbishop—I was summoned to see Cardinal Hume on my proposals to establish grant-maintained schools. When I met him in his palace, he had on his great red robe and had several nuns around him. He was very impressive indeed and rather saintly. It is very difficult to debate with a saint. He said, "I have a letter from the Pope which opposes grant-maintained schools". I said, "Really? Why does the Pope oppose grant-maintained schools?". He said, "It is an absolute principle of the Catholic Church that nothing should come between the bishop and his flock, particularly an electoral process. So I would ask you, please, to withdraw Catholic schools from the grant-maintained provisions of the Bill".
	As I said, it was very difficult to argue with this saintly man, but I said, "I am very sorry, but this goes back to the Reformation. This is your region and my region. But if we are going to have national legislation on grant-maintained schools I cannot possibly exempt the Catholic Church". I was able to resist the Catholic Church on that occasion and I think that the Government could have done so on this occasion, because they made it quite clear that their proposals would not damage existing Catholic schools. But they decided not to do so.
	What is the central issue behind my amendment? It is not about freedom of worship—that is accepted in our country. It is not about respect for the faith—all faiths are respected in our country. It is not about what is taught by each religion in the schools—that is a matter for each religion to decide itself. What is at stake is the shape of our society in the course of the next 10 or 20 years.
	Interestingly, the debates we have had previously and today are the first serious debates in which we as legislators have been able to debate the Butler Act since 1944. There has been no serious debate on the Butler Act. To some, the Butler Act was a religious settlement in which substantial money was provided to the Catholic and the Protestant denominations in order to maintain their schools. However, it had not envisaged at all the situation which now exists in our country—the multi-faith society into which we have grown and the nature of those faiths which have now emerged in our society. As a result of that Act, and of the debates that we have had, everyone believes that there should be integration in our society. That is what everyone agrees and it is what report after report has said.
	The Cantle report on the race riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in 2001 is the critical report, and it was absolutely clear in what it said. Its first recommendation was that schools in the future should have 25 per cent from other races and other religions. It is still the most important report on this issue, reporting as it does upon ethnic, racial and religious strife in our cities just four years ago. Quite apart from that, all opinion polls show that parents would like, on the whole, to have integrated schools.
	When the Government give academies money and support academies, they insist upon integration. They are about to finance an academy in Oldham itself. It will be an integrated academy with children from all faiths attending. The rabbis, priests and imams and other people come in after hours to talk to the schools. So when the Government are in the driving seat and provide the money directly, they are totally committed to integration. I believe that the Minister personally is committed to integration though I know he will have to speak to another brief tonight. We will probably not know his real feelings until his memoirs are published. I hope that I live long enough to read them. The Government are committed to integration but they run away from the pressure of the Catholic Church. That is what has happened.
	I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock,—who is not in his place tonight—was the shadow Education Secretary way back in 1980-81. I remember him going to the Muslim communities and saying, "Don't ask for separate Muslim schools; it will not do you any good. Go to ordinary schools". The whole lesson of immigrant communities in our country is that they prosper when they mix and merge and mingle. The Jewish community shows that time and time again. That was the strong message put out by the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and it was in fact the policy until 1997 when the Government agreed to restart faith schools. The consequences of that were not appreciated at the time.
	People ask whether my proposal is practical. I have had to answer on television and radio a lot of questions such as whether I would send one of my children—I am a bit past that now—or anyone in my family to a Muslim school to form part of the 25 per cent. And this is principally about Muslim schools, because there are 120 such schools waiting in the wings, with probably 50 or 60 of them ready for it. I am not against that. Money to Muslim schools must be a good thing because the standard of education will be improved. But if you take the Queen's shilling, it is entirely appropriate for the Queen to determine the conditions on which that shilling is taken. We can say to the Muslim schools that their admissions criteria should be closer to the admissions criteria of the Church of England, but the Church of England has rightly and with great boldness said that it will give priority to non-Anglicans in 25 per cent of places in new Anglican schools. That was a bold and correct measure and reflects very much the practice of what happens in Anglican schools. That is the policy. I myself went to an Anglican primary school which was totally mixed and where my closest friend was a Jewish boy. If the Muslim schools adopt something as relaxed as that as an admissions criteria then other people will come to then.
	Secondly, in answer to the question of whether anyone else will go to those schools, Bradford Council has decided that no particular school should be dominated by a particular ethnic race. It has moved the catchment areas around so that they are composed of mixed communities. That can be done, and is being done in Oldham at the moment. There can be mixed community schools.
	The noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, is not in the House tonight but I am sure that he must have read my speech. I do not believe that it is in the interest of the Muslim communities themselves to rush into establishing a great number of Muslim schools. If a large number of single-faith schools emerge in an area, say four primaries and three secondaries—there are 100 Muslim schools waiting, but there are also 100 evangelical Christian schools which in many respects are just as difficult—then the community will be closed. You will have a community that is closed upon itself. What will happen in that area? They will first ask for a separate inspection—and that has already been asked for. Secondly, they will ask for modifications to the curriculum. The most beguiling request of all is, "Can't we have world history rather than British history?". Then, they will also ask in the Muslim schools for an observance of family Sharia law.
	These communities tend to have two characteristics—they are disadvantaged and poor. What we are really talking about is what is going to be the shape of our society in our towns and cities in the next 20 or 30 years. If the purpose is to create a total Muslim or Christian personality, then you will have isolated communities. The report into Oldham observed parallel and separate development. That is why this debate is important. I know that it is late at night and a difficult time to take decisions, but this is the first time that either House has had to discuss this matter and what will happen.
	If the Government win tonight—which I suppose is quite likely—and open the door to more faith schools, the people who start those schools will have to exercise considerable leadership to ensure that they do not create closed communities. We talked of the inspectorate under an earlier amendment, which I do not think is a substitute for this one—it cannot bear the weight it wants to carry. One of the things the inspectorate will have to do is find and draw the fine line between religious teaching and indoctrination, which is very difficult.
	Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute of the Study of Islam and Christianity, is not in favour of exclusive Muslim schools. He said of the Muslim faith:
	"It is the only one which teaches its followers to gain political power and then impose a law which governs every aspect of life, discriminating against women and non-believers alike. And this is ultimately why naïve multiculturalism leads not to a mosaic of cultures living in harmony, but one threatened by Islamic extremism".
	The overwhelming feeling of people in this House, whether they support me tonight or not, is to have some form of integrated education in our country. I would like to see children of different faiths playing together in the playground, sitting beside one another in maths and physics lessons, meeting over lunch, walking down the corridor together, taking the same bus home and then visiting each other's family. That is what I did—I visited a Jewish family back in Southport during the war. I would never have known what Judaism was about if I had not done that. If you have separate faith schools, and more separate faith schools, you will not have that. The House has to decide whether we want to inflict parallel and separate developments upon our inner cities or whether we want proper integration. The only way to have proper integration is to adopt these voluntary proposals. I beg to move.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I support the amendment, to which I have put my name. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, and I have come to this from different standpoints. The noble Lord is an Anglican; I am a committed humanist, so there is no chance that God will phone me on my mobile phone.
	The amendment may not be the perfect solution, but it would help integration and send a strong signal to schools. I am also disappointed and frustrated at the Government's failure to bring back a similar amendment as originally proposed, except it has meant that we have had a good debate.
	Recent surveys have shown that 64 per cent of the public oppose government funding for faith schools, fearing their impact on social cohesion—an expression heard many times tonight. I would prefer to have no expansion of faith schools, but the amendment tries to balance any expansion with the imperative to counteract the exclusivity and foster integration between faiths.
	It is understandable that with faith schools already funded through the public purse, others will want public money for their schools. But faith should surely not be allowed to override the needs of children for an education which opens windows to a wider world. Culture and beliefs should, in my view, be transmitted mainly at home, in the church, mosque or temple. The report on Bradford carried out by the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, pointed out that young people realise that being taught in what he called religious ghettos is not a good preparation for life in a multicultural society.
	One Muslim school in north-west London states that the aim of the school is,
	"to produce total Muslim personalities through the training of children's spirits, intellect, feelings and bodily senses".
	We know where such exclusivity leads. We know what happened in Northern Ireland, as pointed out so powerfully at Report by my noble friend Lady Blood.
	I have been and am committed to sound, integrated education as a teacher, parent and school governor. My own children all went to local schools where they made friends across the religious and racial spectrum. I have also been privileged, through schools, to meet parents and teachers across the religious spectrum. The school where I am governor celebrates a multi-faith ethos most successfully. If a school has mixed faiths, then parents will be of mixed faiths and will create communities of mixed faiths. Separation will not do this, nor I fear in some cases will there be adequate emphasis on scientific fact or personal, social and health education. How will the inspectorate for separate faith schools operate alongside Ofsted?
	I remember teaching personal, social and health education in a secondary school where a father prevented his daughter from attending the lessons on religious grounds, in case sex was mentioned. This girl was later found to be peddling overt pornographic material in the playground. At least the school could deal with this as it had a policy and a programme, and I am glad to say that the father became convinced that not discussing things was harmful. How many more children might be damaged by schools not dealing adequately with their broad educational needs?
	I do not believe that faith schools will necessarily and voluntarily admit a percentage of children of other faiths or of no faith, though I know that some do. I had a graphic experience of this over the Recess. A Muslim boy I know wanted to apply to a well known Roman Catholic school in London. He lived nearer to the school than many who attend it. The case was a needy one, which I thought might attract some sympathy from the school. I was told that it only admitted children from Roman Catholic families, and that the waiting list was also open only to Roman Catholic families. Some will say that that is fair enough, but I resent having to pay taxes to fund segregation, which is essentially what this is.
	The Secretary of State for Education affirmed, as did my noble friend earlier, that consultation on this issue with various faiths has taken place. Were all beliefs consulted—such as humanists and secularists? Were teacher organisations, governors and parents consulted? The Secretary of State says we should we seek voluntary agreements rather than use a "blunt instrument"—his words—to achieve the aims of integration. Yet Governments have used many a blunt instrument to change laws on matters of principle and practice. It seems that here, expediency is being peddled as sound educational philosophy.
	There is some value in other amendments before us today about inspections and reviews. I have great sympathy with them, but I want to see more rigour attached to ensuring that schools represent a wide spectrum of belief and understandings now. As I said earlier, a strong signal is needed. The letter to noble Lords from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, myself, and the noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Taverne, says:
	"We do not want to see our society separated, divided, jealous and envious. We want a society that is cohesive, harmonious, generous and tolerant."
	I fear that unless we are firm about our good intentions, we will see society splinter even further, and deny children the opportunity to enjoy all that living in multi-racial Britain offers.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, I have also put my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking. I wish to express my dismay at the Government's surrender to the Catholic lobbies. I am a great admirer of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and never more so than during the discussion on a previous amendment when he showed enormous chutzpah. There he was, sounding the bugles of advance to cover his retreat.
	It strikes me how much this place, the House of Lords, is out of touch with what the people as a whole think. Those who support faith schools are undoubtedly over-represented in this House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has said, something like two-thirds of the population do not want government money spent on faith schools. I feel rather uncomfortable in finding myself, for once, in tune with the majority.
	I suspect the reason that many people do not want this is because they do not like the idea that children should be treated as Muslim, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic children. If you think about it, it is as wrong as if you treat them as Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour children. Most people do not want that because they feel they want children, as they become more mature, to decide for themselves what and what not to believe in.
	It is perfectly true that religion is overwhelmingly determined by an accident of birth: who your parents are, and where you are born. That is not true of all—there are converts—but of most. I suspect that even as reasonable a group as the Bishops in this House, if they had been born in a Muslim country, would now be imams rather than bishops. As children learn to think critically and become more mature, they often abandon the religion of their parents. That is one of the reasons why there is a decline in church attendances—not in the case of the Muslim community, but then if one turns out to a Muslim apostate there are certain rather severe penalties.
	The fact is that faith schools seek to ensure that the children they teach stay within the fold. I agree with the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, in the last debate on this subject. I support this amendment because it seems to be the only way to limit the role of indoctrination and to leave children as free as possible to make their own decisions about what to believe.

Lord Skidelsky: My Lords, I am also a signatory to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. I am always amazed how much theological energy there is still left, especially when we debate education. I wonder whether the Minister may sometimes feel he is back in the age of Gladstone, about whom he knows a great deal. All the issues we are discussing today would have been completely familiar to the grand old man, and he would have attempted to discourse on them at immense length, though much more eruditely than any of us can probably manage—except perhaps the Bishops' Bench.
	The basic historical situation is perfectly clear. The Roman Catholics, having been driven into a defensive posture by nonconformist attack, have long since joined forces with the Church of England in dogmatic defence of the 1902 Education Act, as amended in 1944, which, in Lloyd George's words, "put Rome on the rates". This is exactly the same debate as we were having in 1902, only now it is not Rome but Mecca.
	I dare say that the best solution would have been that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that most rational of men: that all state education, new and old, should be severely secular, with religious education left to churches, Sunday schools, mosques and other private foundations. That was essentially the solution of the Church/state conflict in France, but they were too logical for us. That is not the position we are faced with here; we have run a dual system in which church and voluntary schools have received state money, have been supported by the taxpayer and have had to give very little in return over the 100 years or more that the system has existed. I know that they want to continue that, as they had a good deal from the state.
	The 1944 Act established a principle, of which we should be aware in considering the amendment, that voluntary schools were supposed to give something in return for state support. They could opt to be controlled and obtain 100 per cent grant, or aided and get 50 per cent grant, or have special agreements and a 75 per cent grant. Each had a graduated obligation attached to it—the grant was in inverse ratio to the freedom to provide denominational instruction. In other words, the less they got, the freer they were to be religious missionaries. The principle is clear; if the state gives money to schools, it has a right to a say in school policy and aims.
	What aims of educational policy do the Government want to see served by allowing new schools to be set up? That goes back to a debate that we have been having for the past 10 to 15 years, the main point of which is that such schools are part of the Government's choice agenda. Some of us have urged for a long time the idea that parents should be given a wider choice than they now have regarding to which schools they send their children.
	The Government could have pursued that by allowing only secular promoters to set up state schools. In fact, as I understood it, the main clamour for new state-supported schools came from Muslim communities. So the Government decided, as part of their choice agenda, to put Mecca on the rates, just as Rome was put on the rates in 1902.
	The Church of England and Roman Catholics do not want to disturb the existing concordat. They are relaxed that Muslim schools can be fitted into it without any major change. But we need something more robust, as I suggested in my previous intervention. First, we are dealing with large, newly arrived communities, not old, established ones. That presents us with problems of a completely different order from those that gave rise to the Church/state debates of the previous century. Nebulous words, or even instructions, such as "promoting social cohesion" are inadequate to that situation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, pointed out.
	Secondly, the position is more complicated because Islam has more implications for the curriculum than Christian denominations. The problem is the requirement stated in a standard text that Islamic education should in all respects conform to Koranic guidance. That is particularly relevant to such areas of the curriculum as physical education, swimming, art, music, dance and sex education. Do we want government money to be invested in such deeply separated curricula? We should not want that and we should impose some requirement. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is one way of ensuring that Mecca will not be put on the rates without substantial modifications.
	Requiring Muslim schools to take 25 per cent non-Muslim pupils will be a continuous check on any tendency to extreme separation, which would otherwise become unchecked. There are other ways of achieving greater integration of educational practices, but until the Government come up with something more robust, I urge the House to support the amendment.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I oppose the amendment. I do not want to rehearse all the arguments that I put to your Lordships during Report—I know that we all want to make progress.
	I enjoyed the knock-about to which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, treated us earlier, but I think that he sometimes underestimates the sense of passion that ordinary Catholics feel about this issue. I do not refer to the Catholic Church but to people who attend Catholic churches, who have been to Catholic schools and whose children attend Catholic schools.
	The noble Lord—perhaps inadvertently, because he said where his real target was—has inflamed the passions of people in nearly 2,000 Catholic schools all over the country because his amendment has been interpreted by some as the beginning of the end of their control over their admissions policies. Many noble Lords and Members of another place have also received letters from those people. The position was exacerbated—a point that he did not touch on—when the Secretary of State said that this measure could be applied later to all Church schools. That obviously fills people with a deep sense of misgiving and places at risk the gains that many people have made.
	Lessons can be learnt from the experience of immigrant families who came to this country and integrated and married in the way that I described on Report. My mother was from the west of Ireland and came to the East End, where she married my father at the end of the war. He was a Desert Rat and, when he was demobbed, they married. In common with many people, I was brought up in the East End in a Catholic/Jewish neighbourhood and had the same kind of friendships as the noble Lord, despite the fact that I went to Catholic schools. I was privileged to go on to the Jesuit grammar school, having passed the scholarship at the age of 11. That represented yet more social division, as the noble Lord might see it, but, in fact, it provided me with an opportunity, and I am grateful to those who gave me those chances at that time. I am also very conscious of the way in which money had to be raised, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood and parish by parish, to pay for the construction of those schools.
	My noble friend Lord Skidelsky knows better than I do that the debate did not begin at the start of the 20th century. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, is a great admirer of GK Chesterton and is familiar with the rallies that he and Hilaire Belloc led in 1906 to fight for Catholic education in this country. They came to the issue having been informed by what had happened in the 19th century. After all, it was only in 1829 that Jews and Catholics were emancipated and the iniquitous Test Acts were removed. During the 19th century, universities—Oxbridge, for example—denied places to Catholics merely because they were Catholics. Therefore, significant gains have been made.
	If we want to integrate the Muslim community in this country, it will not happen by imposing 25 per cent quotas. Does anyone believe that, in the present climate, people will be queuing up to send their children to Muslim schools to take up that 25 per cent of places? It would be unrealistic to believe that. We will see change through patience and generosity and by working with the Muslim community in this country. I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, talk this evening about the responsibility that Muslims feel they have to work towards social inclusion, social responsibility and social cohesion. I am sure that that represents the best way forward.
	It has been suggested in this debate and previously that somehow the Church schools are not inclusive. However, the fact is that about 16 per cent of our population who qualify as ethnic minorities are in state schools. In Catholic schools, that figure is 18 per cent. Thirty per cent of pupils in Catholic schools are not Catholic. It is not as a result of legislation that those schools have come to admit people who are not Catholic; they have done so voluntarily.
	I was struck by a letter that many of your Lordships will have received today from Henry Grunwald QC, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He said:
	"You will understand, therefore, why our community is particularly shocked at the suggestion that the current model of Jewish faith schools would no longer have an assured future. You will also understand the concern that a discretion devolved to local authorities provides very little comfort, when there can be no certainty as to how that discretion would be exercised, either now or in the future. Finally, you should be aware of the fear, notwithstanding any current assurances, that these provisions might eventually extend to existing faith schools".
	That is certainly the view of many Catholics as well as Jews, and we should take such fears into account as we consider these questions.
	I think back to my own experience as a constituency Member of Parliament in Liverpool. It was suggested earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that Jewish schools are in some way non-inclusive. The fact is that, because there was a surfeit of places in the local Jewish school that served my own constituency—the King David High School—it had more non-Jewish than Jewish children. This matter is not as straightforward as noble Lords would have us believe.
	I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said on Report. She said:
	"I am afraid I do not believe that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, would achieve very much ... I do not think that the noble Lord's amendment is practicable and workable".—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 729.]
	I agree with that assessment. Perhaps it is also the reason why the Opposition Front Bench, the Government and noble Lords from many parts of your Lordships' House have come to the same conclusion. It is also notable that opposition to the introduction of quotas has united the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The political reality is that if this amendment were passed this evening, it would undoubtedly be resisted in another place.
	Last week, when asked whether he supported this amendment, David Cameron categorically said that he opposed the quotas proposed in the noble Lord's amendment because it smacked of social engineering. He said that he had initially been attracted to the localist approach canvassed by the Secretary of State, until he had heard Mr Johnson suggest that the principle could in future be applied to all Church schools. Mr Cameron concluded that the best and most effective way forward was to impose a duty to work for social cohesion, which your Lordships debated and approved earlier today.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, explained this point and mildly admonished earlier for raising it. He has admitted that this is not the amendment which he tabled a week ago, which proposed a centrally imposed quota. The amendment now passes that power to local authorities. If the amendment is successful, they will be able to decide whether to impose a quota up to25 per cent. That is a fair interpretation of the position.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a good point. She will know that I believe in integration. I am a patron of the Belfast trust which worked for integrated education in Northern Ireland. I am married to an Anglican, with eight ordained Anglican clergy on my wife's side of the family. I work with Muslims, Jews and many others to bring about some sense of social cohesion in places such as Liverpool. I am very confident that the amendment which we passed earlier without dissent is the way forward to achieving the objective that she and I want to bring about.

Lord Brennan: My Lords, at Third Reading the House must exercise legislative discipline and I propose to apply it to the amendment. It is fundamentally flawed. The amendment's purpose is to give local authorities the power to impose quotas and to give the Secretary of State the reserve power to ensure that exclusive schools do not come into existence. In neither case is there an appeal. These are strong powers to give to local authorities and to the Secretary of State. Our legislative discipline requires us to consider in what way that power is expressed. What circumstances circumscribe its exercise? I invite your Lordships to note that in subsection (2) the power for local authorities is a power whereby they may, "if they so desire", impose a quota. That is not a clear expression of the extent of irrational exercise of a power. There is no cross reference anywhere to the circumstances to be taken into account if it is to be exercised. It is doomed to failure. It will never survive a judicial review application. It is that discipline that I am inviting the House to note on this occasion.
	In addition, there are no circumstances to be applied to its exercise. Clause 33(6), as the Minister pointed out, refers to community cohesion, but for foundation schools. Amendment No. 7 refers to governing authorities and Amendment No. 19 to the Ofsted inspectorate. Not in Clause 1, Clause 2 or anywhere else do we find a local authority being required to take into consideration certain circumstances before deciding what it desires. That is unacceptable. I was surprised when I read the amendment, and I may prove to be wrong, as may the librarians, but tonight they inquired on my behalf.
	In 58 years of parliamentary experience, only two Acts and nine sets of regulations have used the phrase, "if they so desire" and then only to give people a choice to make a representation, to participate or not; never to lay the foundation for the exercise of national or local power. If the amendment in this form is the result of inadvertence, so be it. If it is the alternative, so be it. In either event it is simply not acceptable. Would any one of your Lordships accept a power by national or local authorities in any other context simply dictated by the phrase, "if they so desire"? Of course not. The amendment fails, I regret to say, despite the wit and style with which it was introduced, on basic legislative principle. This is not a phrase that accommodates our democratic approach.
	Secondly, if you propose to change decades of educational practice ingrained in our society, you need clarity. Was it not in the United States, on the only occasion that I can think of, with quotas in education during the civil rights era, that the passage of white pupils to black schools and vice versa led to division and outrage—educational and social consequences that no one had ever envisaged? Those who propose a system in which that might be required need to explain to us how it will work and how those problems will be avoided. The amendment does not do that. Neither in its content nor in its intent does it meet the democratic and legislative principles of the House.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I agree with what has just been forensically said by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, about the defects in the amendment, but I should like, if I may, to make a series of different, short points. First, any Jew, like me, from my generation would have a natural aversion to quotas when it comes to access to schools. Those of my generation will remember how most public schools in London, for example, had very small Jewish quotas. The school that I went to, the City of London School, was, when I went there, the only one that had no Jewish quota, so one-third of the school was Jewish. The idea of quotas is something that I think both secular and religious Jews dislike, partly for that reason.
	Secondly, most sensible people would say that having apartheid or religiously segregated schools creates social evils—witness Northern Ireland or, I would say, Birkenhead in Liverpool or Scotland, where there are obvious examples of the social problems that segregated education creates.
	Thirdly, it is important to explain to the House and to the right reverend Prelate that this is not an area where there is not already robust law in place to catch state-maintained schools as public authorities if they discriminate on racial or religious grounds in access to places in those schools.
	I give just two examples. One is the Race Relations Act, which would prevent any school, Jewish, Muslim or otherwise—indeed, even private schools—from practising direct or indirect racial discrimination in access. The more telling example, because it is more pervasive, is the Human Rights Act. I should be interested to know whether the Minister agrees with what I am about to say or can take advice on it.
	The European Convention on Human Rights, in Article 2 of the first protocol, guarantees the right to education. Article 14 of the convention has to be read with it, and states that in respect of the enjoymentof the right to education, there must be no discrimination. "No discrimination" will include discrimination on religious grounds.
	I was counsel in a case on behalf of the Government of Mauritius, whose written constitution is modelled on the European Convention on Human Rights, which came before the Privy Council two years ago. An appeal was brought by the Bishop of Port Louis on behalf of the managers of 12 Catholic secondary schools in Mauritius. What had happened in that case is instructive. The Catholic Church in Mauritius maintained a system of private education that was excellent in the secondary area. In order to persuade the Churches to bring their schools within the state sector, the Government made a deal whereby the Catholic schools could maintain a 50 per cent quota for Catholics; the other 50 per cent being admitted on merit. So there was a clear 50:50 quota.
	The question that a Hindu father of an 11 year-old girl raised in the case was whether it was unconstitutional discrimination to refuse to admit his daughter in the 50 per cent reserved for Catholics in that area. A strong and unanimous judicial committee with the Privy Council, led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, the senior Law Lord, held that that difference of treatment was discriminatoryunless it could be objectively justified, looking atall the circumstances, including the principle of proportionality.
	In my view, that case, read with the case law on the European Human Rights Convention, shows the following: either of these categories of schools, these additional schools, is wholly funded out of public funds. They are therefore public authorities within the meaning of the Human Rights Act. They therefore have a duty to comply with the conventional rights and with the right not to discriminate unfairly and unjustifiably in allocating pupils to those schools. Therefore, whether it be a Muslim school, a Jewish school, a Catholic school, or an Anglican school,any school which discriminates arbitrarily or ina disproportionate way in their admission arrangements will be vulnerable immediately to a direct challenge under Sections 6 and 7 of the Human Rights Act for breaching their obligations under the human rights convention because they are all public authorities.
	This would not apply, of course, to schools that are privately funded, and nor should it. In the private sector, as the case I have just mentioned indicates, different considerations arise. But I just wish the House to understand that we already have a strong and robust Human Rights Act and Race Relations Act which govern in this field, and for that reason, as well as the technical points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, I am not in favour of this amendment. I do not like quotas, anyhow, and it is unnecessary. But I do think that those who operate schools of this kind ought to be pretty careful about the way that they make their admission arrangements. I would just add that under the Race Relations Act, local authorities are implicated in some areas, and so is the Secretary of State for Education, if they allow schools to discriminate indirectly or directly on grounds of race.
	There is a lot of law in place. It will trump the legislation that the House is now considering because the Human Rights Act says that all legislation must be read and given effect in a way that is compatible with the convention rights, and the same applies to administrative discretion. I apologise for talking as the lawyer that I am, but I thought it might be quite useful if I gave the House some free legal advice on this area.

Lord Winston: My Lords, I rise regrettably to oppose the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. I do so remembering that we have at least one thing in common. Although I did not go to his primary school, we both shared a secondary "ancient" education.
	Be that as it may, I feel that what he is recommending is embarking on a huge social experiment. It seems to me that before one considered this kind of legislation, one would need to do some very serious social science research to see exactly what the consequences could be. It could well be that rather than causing harmony, disharmony could occur as a result of this, particularly in areas where these schools are oversubscribed. In the current case of some Jewish schools, they are grossly oversubscribed in north-west London. If there were new schools being made, that would be a massive problem for those people.
	We have heard a great deal about the taxpayer paying for a religious education, but often in the schools that I am aware of, the religious education is paid for separately. Certainly in most Jewish schools, it does not come within the state's remit. Religious education is paid for by the parents who raise those funds by alternative methods.
	We have heard other irrelevant arguments. My noble friend Lady Massey talked about the situation in Northern Ireland. That is completely irrelevant. The divisiveness in Northern Ireland has nothing to do primarily with schooling. It comes from a totally different kind of society with the social tensions that has.
	Equally, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, that it is ridiculous to take France as an example. Does he seriously consider France to be a more cohesive society as regards religious discipline? On the contrary, there is probably more anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic feeling there than there has been in Britain in recent years. The model in other parts of Europe is no better.
	Rather than taunt my noble friend Lord Adonis for a switch of direction, we should congratulate the Government on their flexibility. It is not just the Catholic community that has made representations to them; the Jewish community is wholeheartedly opposed to this kind of amendment because it fears for the consequences. Much of the Muslim community opposes it. As has been said, we must trust the Muslim community accordingly. The worst thing that could happen if we discontinued such state funding would be to force some religious education into the private sector, where it might not be so well controlled. That would be a grave error. We should contemplate that today before we go through the Lobby, if the noble Lord decides to call a Division.

The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, it is self-evident from what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said that the Roman Catholic Church is acting in a selective and self-protecting way. It is perfectly understandable. My noble friend Lord Baker and others have created a real danger of Muslim schools undergoing the same ghettoisation—I am not sure whether that is the right word but I am afraid that it is what they want to do. It is not often realised, for instance, that in the Muslim world there is no conception like ours in the Christian world of:
	"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's".
	Throughout Muslim history there has been tension with secular government, because in theory the prophet did not allow it. Everything had to be governed under Sharia or religious law. Christianity, luckily for itself, had the ability to separate the two.
	The Church of England has been fundamental to the development of the ethos of the United Kingdom. As I said to a bishop earlier, I am not even sure that the Church of England always believes in God. He quite charmingly proved my point by saying, "I think we do". The Church of England's very broadminded and, if I may say so, very English approach to religion and society has made its schools particularly good.
	The other Churches felt left out and asked for help to preserve their separate identity. That is why Peel paid for Maynooth Roman Catholic seminary well before 1902 and Lloyd George. It was designed by Pugin and paid for by the English taxpayer. The very real danger that has been shown is that of exclusive schools, and we do not address it at our peril.
	I will vote for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Baker, even though I was deeply influenced by the stunning performance of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and quite understand why he is such a brilliantly paid barrister. I agree with him legislatively, but I feel so strongly about the danger of faith schools at the fringe, beyond the Roman Catholic, Church of England and, probably, Jewish schools, that I must vote for my noble friend Lord Baker. I do not think that we have yet addressed this serious problem as much as we should.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, makes an interesting point. If you take the argument to its logical conclusion, it will be the Jedi who want a faith-based school next because I gather that the Jedi was the fourth most popular faith declared in the last census.
	We have again had a long and interesting debate and many important points have been made. I shall be as brief as I can in saying why Members on these Benches will not support the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in the Lobbies tonight. However, I am very attracted to the picture he paints of schools in which children of different faiths and no faith sit next to each other, play and learn together, go home on the bus and visit each others' houses. That is a situation we would like to see. However, we do not like the amendment for three reasons. The first is that we do not like quotas, and the main reason we do not like them is that they persuade some people to pretend to be things that they are not and others to pretend not to be things that they are. That always happens with quotas.
	The second reason is one which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, himself convinced me of; that is, that the amendment will not achieve much because it will apply only to a very few schools. We live in a period of falling rolls and not many schools will be affected by his quotas. The third reason is that we do not think it is workable. In order to investigate whether it would be workable, I looked at evidence from existing faith schools that already open their doors to children of other faiths or none. I discovered that Al Hijraj School, a voluntary-aided Muslim secondary school in Birmingham which already accepts non-Muslim pupils, has said that only one or two inquiries had been received from non-Muslim families since the school became state funded four years ago. Gatton Primary School in Wandsworth, south London, which is another state-funded Muslim school, has had very few applications from non-Muslim children. The Guru Nanak School in Hillingdon, the country's only state-funded Sikh comprehensive, said that it gets about six applications a year from non-Sikhs. Two faith-based primary schools are about to open in Slough, one is Sikh and one Muslim. Both have already decided on their own quotas, one of 20 per cent and the other 25 per cent, of places to be offered to those not of their faith. Both of the head teachers have said that they do not really think they will be able to fill those quotas. If they do not fill them, well, the places cannot be left empty. According to the law, they have to be filled.
	The objective of the noble Lord's amendment, which I applaud, will not be achieved. Members on these Benches are not in the business of putting on to the statute book legislation which is unworkable.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, on Report I undertook that the Government would consult on this issue before Third Reading. Having done so, the Government have concluded that the best and most effective way of promoting community cohesion is to lay a new duty to promote community cohesion on the governing bodies of all maintained schools in England—all Christian faith schools, all Muslim faith schools, all Sikh schools, Jewish schools and Hindu schools, and not just faith schools or new faith schools, but all schools. These issues of cohesion and the promotion of relationships between different parts of the community affect all schools, whether in Oldham or Orpington, Bradford or Birmingham. The Government have also agreed with Ofsted that there should be an effective inspection regime to back up this new duty to promote community cohesion. The House has now agreed the amendments to give effect to these new duties on schools and on Ofsted. We have debated them at length and I do not want to repeat what was said.
	However, on the issue of admissions raised in this amendment, absolutist positions have been stated. On one side there are those who believe that it is fundamentally wrong for faith schools to have admissions policies that make it possible for others to join such schools at all. That view has been put to me in the past week by some senior religious leaders. On the other side there are those who want to require all schools to recruit beyond their faith as a matter of principle. The Government have consistently rejected both absolutist positions and, indeed, so have most of the faith leaders that we have consulted in the past week.
	As a matter of fact, at least some faith schools of all faiths and of all denominations offer places beyond their immediate faith communities, not least Catholic schools, a third of whose pupils nation-wide comes from beyond the Catholic community. I should add that Catholic education takes pride in that fact, as part of its wider service to the nation, particularly in disadvantaged areas. The Government have made it clear that we welcome such outreach and have therefore welcomed the voluntary statement of the Catholic Church that, in planning any new schools, it will take account of community demand beyond the immediate Catholic community in agreeing the size and admissions policies of its schools. Other faith communities are taking a similar approach. But, after the consultation that we have undertaken, we accept that this should come about with the agreement, case by case, of the faith community in question. We accept too that there may be valid reasons why such admissions arrangements are not appropriate—either to do with local exigencies or to do with principle in particular cases—although I should stress that it is the existing law that no faith school may leave places empty where it is undersubscribed and where others beyond the faith community wish to attend the school.
	We have therefore decided that it is not appropriate to introduce new statutory regulation in this area. We intend to make it clear in the new school admissions code that while it may be good practice for a new faith school to open up places to non-faith applicants this must be a voluntary decision, and that any such modification of a proposal for a new faith school within the maintained system must not be imposed on the promoters either by the local authority or by the schools adjudicator. The Government, therefore, oppose the amendment.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I am particularly interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, because, to the extent that I understood him, if he is correct in his interpretation of the Human Rights Act, all new faith schools will be illegal and, indeed, there will be considerable doubt about existing faith schools. Whether or not that is good news or stands up legally, I do not know, but it certainly adds a whole new light to the issue. The Minister said that he will look at the situation. I would very much like him to let us know what the position is. It is a fundamental change much more radical than anything I am suggesting.
	There have been two threads of comment, hostility or opposition to what I have said. First, it was said that this is unworkable; that quotas will not work. I am not a quota man. I always think Liberal education policy is something of an enigma enveloped in a fog, but the noble Baroness who speaks for the Liberal Democrats said that it is unworkable. She should come with me to Northern Ireland in a fortnight's time; I am going with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.We are going to see 53 schools that work on a quota—40 per cent Catholic, 40 per cent Protestant and 20 per cent other. How do you think Northern Ireland has managed to get it right? Northern Ireland gets so much wrong, but how do you think it managed to get that right when it is unworkable. Of course it is workable if there is a will to make it work.
	I know the system that I am proposing is not perfect. I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan. I looked upon him as an ally. On Friday morning of last week, after the Government withdrew their amendments, I had to draw up these amendments but I did not have his advice. I wish I had because I would have made them better and workable. The Government have that opportunity and have perfect amendments drafted by the Bill team. I spoke to the Bill team but, unfortunately, it did not send the amendments to me. I would have tabled those if it had. I am quite sure that if I had tabled those amendments, all the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, mentioned would have been resolved. It is not a question of wording but a question of intent. Does the noble Lord want to see integrated education in our country or not? The noble Lord did not express his views on that so I do not know what they are, but I want to see integrated education in our country.
	The second point was that the previous amendment does all the work. We debated it earlier and I supported it, but it is carrying too large a weight. You cannot expect the inspectors in our schools to by themselves create community cohesion: it is asking too much of them. The Government have got to do something. I think that the voluntary undertakings they have got will not really work.
	I thank the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, a very old friend, who is not going to support me tonight. But he is not going to vote with the Government—we ex-Home Secretaries must stick together. But if either of us held that post today, there would be thudding on our desk every week reports about a lack of social cohesion in our inner cities. The reports would say all the time that you must not allow societies to develop that are parallel and separate. That is what distinctive faith schools will do; it is an inevitable result. All the advice goes that way from the Cantle report in 2001.
	I think it is very disappointing that only one Member from an Asian community has spoken in the debate today. I have been told by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that we must not push Muslims into the corner. But there are Muslim Members of this House and this is a debate about the Muslim faith in our country today. If they want to share their views and communicate, they have some responsibility to try to do so. We cannot debate this matter by ourselves.
	Finally, I say to the right reverend Prelates—the bishops of my dear old Anglican Church—that when I was Education Secretary and I had to deal with the bishops of the Church of England and the bishops of the Church of Rome, I discovered why bishops move diagonally. I am quite sure that if these amendments had been tabled by the Government as they intended to do a week ago—beautifully drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and perfect in their execution but saying exactly what my amendments do—those on the Bishops' Bench would be voting for them.

Lord Moser: My Lords, it has been suggested to me that, as we have had a long day, it would be better if I sang this amendment. Unfortunately, I do not have a singing voice. I can play the piano, but there is not one in the Chamber. I am stuck with words.
	Amendment No. 13, with the subsequent conditions and consequences in Amendments Nos. 21 and 22, is very simple, with a crucial aim of giving more of our children opportunities for music education in schools. To achieve this, the amendment will simply remove some anomalies in present legislation which hamper progress in that direction. I have listened to a lot of the debate on other matters, with particular interest in subject matters like languages and science, so I am pleased that, late in the day, the arts join the club of contents discussed.
	Your Lordships do not need reminding of the special importance of the arts, not least for children. Some of your Lordships may be old enough, as I am, to remember Jennie Lee, the first Wilson Government Arts Minister. She put all this so well when she said:
	"If children at an early age become accustomed to the arts as part of everyday life, they are more likely in maturity first to accept the arts and then to demand them".
	That is what I am talking about.
	My own luck was that, in my early days in Berlin, music was totally central both at home and at school. When I came to school in England, within two days I was in the school choir singing in "Dido and Aeneas". Since then, I can honestly say that no day in my life has been without the enrichment of music, whether listening, playing or learning and/or working in music organisations and on projects which might widen musical experience for the young. Such a one—and I declare an interest as chairman of the project—is the Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Musical Futures. The project focuses on secondary education and on innovating approaches to the teaching and learning of all kinds of music. I believe it will have an exciting and imaginative influence on engaging more 11 to 19 year-olds in music activities.
	The music manifestodocument, which has just been published—hence this amendment—shows a wide range of activities up and down the country, demonstrating how much is going on in music education. The champion of the music manifesto is Marc Jaffrey. He pays tribute to all the progress in the country's music activities, but he also does not shirk, nor does the department, the major challenges that remain or, above all, the fact that many children do not have the access they deserve to pursue their music, whether on instruments or in singing. That is where this amendment can help positively. Current legislation is actually in the way.
	I must make clear that I am not talking about music in the national curriculum, which covers children from five to 14—at which point, sad to relate, all but 7 per cent of children drop music altogether. The amendment refers to the many children who, early on, notably in primary school, develop enthusiasm for any kind of music and want to go on with tuition with a specialist teacher provided through the music services. That has to be paid for so that the providers, the specialist teachers, can be properly financed.
	That is where present legislation gets in the way. Amazingly enough, instrumental tuition in groups of over four pupils, or for any vocal tuition, cannot be charged for. That is a strict anomaly. As regards instruments, it often makes more sense to teach in larger groups than four. As for singing, it is necessary to teach in whatever groups make most sense for the children and for the music. The amendment would remove that confusing anomaly.
	I should make it clear that charges would apply only where pupils themselves, after an initial introduction to music making or singing, choose to take their learning further, beyond the statutory provision. If their family or school is prepared to pay, all is well. The regulations will stipulate that, as now, remission policies will be in place to help pupils from lower-income families with these charges.
	To summarise: this amendment would achieve freedom to charge for teaching in large instrumental groups, not just up to four, and for any vocal tuition. This would actually widen access, because the cost per pupil would go down significantly. Moreover, the other important consequence is that it would help to deal with the shortfall in specialist music teaching, which is a real threat to progress.
	To put that in a single sentence: this amendment would get rid of present anomalies and ensure that music tuition for those who wanted to go on beyond the statutory condition would be made available and charged for, whatever the size of the group, for vocal as well as for instrumental lessons. I know that many of your Lordships share my passion for the importance of music, and for making it as widely available as possible. I hope this amendment will commend itself to your Lordships, and to the Government. I beg to move.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the Government welcome the amendments for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Moser, and others set out, and we are glad that such a broad consensus of support for them has been expressed this evening.
	The current legislation, contained in the Education Act 1996, allows charges to be made for instrumental tuition during the school day only for groups of up to four children. No charges can be made for any vocal tuition during the school day. We regard those as unjustified restrictions that are holding back music education in our schools. It is the Government's aim that, in time, all primary school children should, if they choose to, have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. We also believe in the importance of singing, including the teaching of singing by specialist teachers in small groups or one-to-one. The Government have substantially increased resources for music education in schools in recent years, particularly in primary schools, including a new£2 million national scheme to provide musical instruments to music education services—the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked me about that.
	We have been told time and again, most recently in the Music Manifesto report, that one of the barriers to making the instrumental tuition pledge a reality and to increasing the opportunities for every child to sing is the current charging legislation. Restricting instrumental group sizes to four means that, with the specialist teaching staff who are available or who are likely to be available in the foreseeable future, there is simply not enough capacity to provide specialist tuition for all the children who might want to learn. Also, with groups restricted to just four, the price per head for lessons is sometimes prohibitive for parents with limited means. The demand for specialist singing has increased, but those who want to provide that tuition are hampered by the fact that lessons during school hours cannot be charged for, as they can for musical instruments.
	The regulation-making power proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Moser, would allow us to consult thoroughly on the best solutions for instrumental and vocal tuition. It is vital that no child who is currently receiving specialist tuition is disadvantaged by the introduction of new charging structures. In our consultation on the regulations, we will propose also that schools and music services be required to retain or establish remission policies so that disadvantaged families will be able to access instrumental or vocal tuition. That meets the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. We will also ensure that there is no question of charges being made for tuition that is part of music teaching in the national curriculum.
	On that basis, I commend the amendments to the House. I am glad to accept them on behalf of the Government.

Lord Moser: I simply express my thanks to noble Lords who have spoken, all of them in support of the amendment—I am very pleased about that. I thank also the Minister for his response. He is enthusiastically involved in the Music Manifesto, which is good news for all of us. I am sure that we look forward to seeing the revised regulations when they appear in due course. This is extremely good news for young people who are enthusiastic about music.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I am pleased to have an opportunity to return once again to this debate. I was interested to hear the words of the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on this topic on Report and I reserved my right to take those new perspectives into account in order to return with a solution at Third Reading.
	Allegations of abuse are matters that deserve sensitive treatment. Children's well-being is the most precious thing to any parent and that is why I am so thankful that we have a workforce of teachers and school staff who seek to improve not only their well-being but also their chances in life. That is why I persist in this matter. Teachers and school staff give their lives to educating our children and it is our duty to ensure that they get a fair deal. It is not a fair deal when, out of 2,210 accusations of physical or sexual abuse in the past 15 years, fewer than 40 per cent—88—led to convictions, or when most of the10 per cent who face charges result in acquittals. It is also not a fair deal when, in one year, 100 members of NASUWT were exposed to accusations only for it to be confirmed that, after all, there was no case to answer.
	Anonymity appears in a wide variety of legislation. Its most well known uses are for anonymity for victims of rape and for children under the age of 18 involved in investigations. Yet it also appears in various guises in the Merchant Shipping (Liner Conferences) Act 1982 and in giving anonymity to alleged terrorists under control orders in the Prevention of Terrorism Act last year. It is amazing that, under Section 6 of that Act, suspected terrorists who are subject to control orders have a right to anonymity but teachers do not. The use of anonymity for alleged terrorists is clear evidence that anonymity is necessary in certain cases. The Government were so aware of the detrimental effects on trial of overexposure in the media that suspected terrorists are given identity protection. I think most of us would agree that child abuse and terrorism are two of the greatest evils in our society and being accused of one would be as damaging as being accused of the other. While the Minister expresses his concerns that anonymity has no place in legislation, I direct him to the strong precedent in the statute books.
	On this issue, as on others that we have debated tonight, as far as possible we have sought to achieve consensus. This new amendment takes into account the concerns of noble Lords on all Benches and the concerns of unions and charities, including the NSPCC, the NUT and the NASUWT. The amendment applies only to allegations of criminal offences. That would protect teachers and school staff who have to wait the longest for a charge to be brought or dropped. The Minister acknowledged that three months would be the minimum wait for accusations of criminal offences, even under the new guidelines. The amendment answers the concerns of the NUT by defining anonymity. There are two characteristics: it lasts only until a charge has been brought and it relates only to reporting restrictions. In our view the preservation of a possibly innocent reputation is more important than the provision of sensationalist copy to the local press. Given a choice between so-called press freedom and the protection of an innocent person's livelihood, I know which one I would choose.
	A further significant change in the amendment is the process for exemptions from anonymity. After legal consultation, it has been possible to alter the amendment. Under the provisions of the amendment, to achieve an exemption, a chief constable could apply to a magistrates' court to waive anonymity where it would be expedient to the carrying out of a criminal investigation or in the interests of security. That would be done in much the same way as an application for a search warrant. That takes the exemption procedure out of the hands of the Secretary of State and reroutes it through a tried and tested system. Just as a search warrant allows the investigation of premises, so a warrant to waive anonymity allows the public investigation of a person's identity.
	I understand the concerns of noble Lords that providing anonymity for teachers and school staff could establish a two-tier system, yet I resist that objection on three counts. First, the point that protection from media exposure which could wreck careers and lives would not extend to one group of people does not constitute a principled objection that it should be provided to another group. Secondly, while we would be very interested to consider providing anonymity for carers and others who face malicious and vexatious accusations, such an amendment would be outside the scope of the Bill. Our business here this evening is education and ensuring the quality of life within the education system as a teacher or member of school staff. Perhaps a future social care Bill will provide an opportunity for provision for social workers.
	Thirdly, accusation is an easy route to manipulation. Let us not forget that false allegations are made not just by children but by other adults. Indeed, I know of a personal case in that situation; it was horrendous. We must not forget also that often these cases arise due to misunderstood circumstances where the comment of a pupil has aroused the suspicion of an adult and to be on the safe side an allegation is made. It is right that children retain anonymity. That is something I would defend to the last. However, we believe that the amendment provides a necessary safeguard that could provide100 per cent protection from trial by media if the unproved guidance does not work.
	These cases are so sensitive. They stand to affect the life of a child and that child's family, but also the lives of schools, staff and their families in turn. I do not for one minute suggest that we should not listen to accusations and treat every single one with 100 per cent seriousness, but I suggest that there is another side to the story, that instead of the dramatic sensationalist coverage and exposure of allegations of abuse, those cases should be treated with care, sincerity and privacy. We are pleased that there is guidance there and like the Government hope for the success of the guidance in reducing vexatious or malicious allegations. However—and this is important—our amendment does not force the Government to take action now. It is an enabling power that would give the Government the opportunity to give teachers the right to anonymity should the guidance prove insufficient. We see it as a safeguard. I think that that is a sensible amendment and I hope that noble Lords will support it. I beg to move.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I was involved in the creation of a group called FACT—Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers— not long after the major investigations that took place, first, in north Wales over children's authorities and allegations of abuse of children in those authorities and secondly, in the major Merseyside study of schools and of children's homes shortly afterwards. Those were extensive inquiries and many dozens of people were involved in allegations that were made about them in one way or another. Undoubtedly some of those allegations held up.
	The fact that the police chose a method effectively seeking to obtain evidence from people who attended those care homes or those schools—which was known in the trade as cruising for crime—led to a number of people coming forward from those institutions in order to make allegations, not discouraged by the fact that it was widely known that there was a possibility of substantial compensation being paid to someone who had suffered from abuse. In other words, there was a true motivation for some fairly unsavoury characters coming forward to make such allegations. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, that we are talking not only about the wrecking of the lives of certain teachers who turn out to be completely innocent but also the shadow that is cast by the very fact that they are named even though they may be later found to be innocent, shadows that to my certain knowledge—I can give a number of cases about which I happen to know first hand from the association—led to people being unable to find appointments and stay in their positions, even though it turned out that there were absolutely no grounds for the allegations made against them.
	I have not followed in detail what the legal difficulties may be here. I am sure that there are some, there are almost always legal difficulties about virtually any amendment that anyone moves, but I believe that this is a serious issue. It is one where we need to protect the good names of teachers until a decision is made about whether criminal proceedings should be brought. I am being as brief as I can because of the hour. I would like to say that this is an extremely serious matter. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, has addressed it powerfully and I hope that the Minister will give it whatever consideration he can to try to protect innocent teachers against whom allegations are made on which there are no grounds at all.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I appreciate the concerns that have given rise to the amendment. There have been discussions on the issue all the way through the progress of the Bill, both in another place and in your Lordships' House, including a meeting that my honourable friend Jim Knight held with the noble Baronesses, Lady Buscombe and Lady Walmsley, along with Members of another place and representatives from the NSPCC and the NASUWT, to discuss the issue further.
	As I say, we appreciate the concerns to protect teachers and other members of school staff from the damaging effects of allegations and the work that the noble Baroness has done to develop and refine this amendment during the course of the Bill. But we must also keep in mind the vital importance of safeguarding children from abuse wherever they are, and ensuring that children are encouraged to speak out about abuse they have suffered. We want all children to be confident in the knowledge that their concerns will be taken seriously and responded to. It is getting the balance right which is uppermost on our minds in this very delicate area.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, we have taken significant steps to meet concerns in this area. We issued new guidance on allegations in educational settings only last November. The guidance was issued under Section 175 of the Education Act 2002, which means that schools have to have regard to it when making arrangements to safeguard and to promote the welfare of children. The guidance states that every effort should be made to maintain confidentiality and guard against unwanted publicity while an allegation is being investigated, unless and until a person is charged with an offence. It also makes clear that in exceptional circumstances, the police may need to disclose the identity of a person under investigation.
	We also issued further overarching guidance on allegations against anyone working with children in any setting in the revised version of Working Together to Safeguard Children. This was issued only this April in England and came into force only at the start of this month. As I explained on Report, that guidance aims to ensure that allegations are dealt with consistently, and that issues are resolved as quickly as possible because time is the big problem in this area and it gives rise to so much of the concern on the part of the teachers' associations. The Working Together guidance that I have just referred to, and has only just come into force, provides target timescales for each step in the process and sets an overall expectation that 80 per cent of cases should be resolved within one month, 90 per cent within three months, and all but the most exceptional cases should be completed within 12 months. The proposed regulations would not, we believe, help to speed up the handling of cases.
	Furthermore, in April we also put in place a network of allegation management advisers based in government offices. They are working with the new local safeguarding children boards and their members to ensure that effective arrangements are in place for dealing with allegations of abuse against people who work with children, implementing the new guidance on allegations against teachers and the guidance I just mentioned, Working Together to Safeguard Children.
	Part of the allegation management advisers' work is to help organisations avoid allegations arising in the first place through safe recruitment processes and through advice on staff behaviour when working with children. The allegation management advisers are also helping local safeguarding children boards and organisations to develop and implement effective arrangements for collecting data on allegations.
	All these measures I have set out have recently been put in place. We believe that they will help to achieve the right balance between protecting teachers and others from the damaging effect of false or unfounded allegations while, on the other hand, safeguarding children. Our strong preference is not to legislate on this matter but to focus our energies on making sure that these new arrangements are working well.
	In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I can tell the House that we have undertaken to review the impact of the guidance for the education sector in 2007 with the involvement of all stakeholders, and to reconsider in the light of that review what further measures may be necessary, which may include further measures in respect of protecting the anonymity of teachers. But although we have worked through the many options in this area, I do not have an option I can bring to the House and I do not believe it would be appropriate for me to recommend the House to legislate for a general enabling power when the Government cannot tell the House how they would propose to implement it.
	We have, however, undertaken to consult further next year and my officials will be discussing the timetable for this further work with the teachers' associations, including the NASUWT which has raised the most consistent concerns in this area. The NASUWT has said today that it supports our approach, that it wishes to continue to be involved in this important work and it would not support an amendment being passed without a clear view of how the Government might implement it.
	I hope that on the basis of the assurances I have been able to give, the noble Baroness will not feel it necessary to press this amendment.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, this amendment requests the sort of statutory guidance which the Government have recently put in place to address the important issue we have just been debating, but in this case it concerns training for teachers on the appropriate use of physical restraint, and in particular on children with physical or mental difficulties. We have been advised by the charity TreeHouse, the Advisory Centre for Education and the National Autistic Society.
	The Minister has stated that he is content with the current position and he has repeatedly assured us that the DfES is not aware that the current powers have caused any difficulties since 1998. However, the charities that have briefed us can all point to examples where school staff have made inappropriate physical interventions with no training and with serious consequences for pupils and adults. A couple of weeks ago a special report by Channel 4 News showed a case involving a six year-old girl with autism and other communication conditions which highlighted the lack of training on appropriate handling methods and proper post-incident procedures in a mainstream primary school. The six year-old girl was restrained firmly on several occasions. The girl's treatment at school came to the attention of her parents only when she came home with ripped clothing. The parents requested a full incident log and found that their daughter had been held repeatedly, removed from classrooms and the toilet, and that staff had not received or requested training until the situation became known to the parents. No incident had been reported to the parents. A joint investigation by the police and the local authority found serious procedural errors in the school, which had no policy on physical interventions. The department has conceded that it does not collect data on the number of incidents involving pupils with SEN, but as the Channel 4 News investigation found from research it commissioned, many mainstream schools have been "unaffected" by the non-statutory guidance.
	What is the basis for the Minister's assertion that the DfES is not aware that the current powers have caused difficulties, given the lack of monitoring and data collection? How can he say that when he does not really know? A DfES audit of allegations against teachers and other staff in the education service for September 2003-04 found that the largest number of allegations against staff arose from inappropriate physical handling in a mainstream secondary setting. A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research supports the argument that mainstream staff need to be better equipped to manage the challenging behaviours they are increasingly facing today. The report makes it clear that special schools, for which there is good guidance that is well known to them, have the highest frequency of incidents but the least likelihood of a complaint arising. It is pretty obvious why; their staff have proper training. Equally, the report goes on to note that mainstream schools have the fewest incidents but the highest number of complaints. They do not have proper training and they are not all aware of the non-statutory guidance. Plainly, behind this research and these case studies there is a very high human and financial cost of inappropriate interventions, in terms of exclusions, police time, physical injury, anxiety and the possible need for alternative, out-of-county placements.
	This issue is too important to be left to chance, by placing documents on the Teachernet website and leaving schools to carry out their own risk assessments. We believe that statutory guidance will ensure that all schools prioritise this issue when they come to consider their whole school behaviour and their inclusion and disability discrimination policies. This is the best way of ensuring that we achieve a more proactive, preventive and constructive approach across all schools. The Bill gives a clear statement of the rights of all members of the school's work-force to use force where appropriate and necessary. We believe that there should be a countervailing responsibility on all schools—especially mainstream schools, where most children, with autism, for example, are educated—to train their staff effectively, so that they are as aware and as skilled as many staff in special schools are in how to deal appropriately with these situations. I beg to move.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, since Report I have written to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on Clause 92 and the issues of concern to her. In my letter, I said that the department already issues three pieces of guidance on the use of force, two of which are aimed at special schools and persons who work with pupils with severe special educational needs and one, Circular 10/98, for mainstream schools.
	Circular 10/98 provides schools with clear, detailed and practical advice on all the key issues that they will need to consider in making use of this power. In particular, the guidance gives examples of circumstances in which physical intervention might be appropriate, factors that staff should bear in mind when deciding whether to intervene and the kinds of physical intervention that might or might not be appropriate. It also discusses the meaning of "reasonable force" and advises that schools should have a policy about the use of reasonable force and that they should tell parents about it. It further advises that schools should record incidents in which any force, other than trivial or minor force, is used and tell parents of any such incidents involving their child. The issue of ensuring that school staff understand this properly, about which the noble Baroness has indicated particular concern, is also specifically addressed in this guidance:
	"The Head teacher should draw up a policy setting out guidelines about the use of force to control or restrain pupils, and discuss these with the staff who may have to apply them, and with the Governing Body of the school".
	The guidance goes on to advise how, in planning for possible incidents, schools need to consider:
	"briefing staff to ensure they know exactly what action they should be taking (this may identify a need for training or guidance)".
	I should emphasise that this does not mean that all staff will necessarily need training, or that any training needs identified for individual staff members will be the same as for other staff, but there is a helpful prompt in this part of the guidance for senior school management to consider what if any training needs there might be for individual staff members in the light of their experience, particular responsibilities and so on.
	We therefore believe that this guidance, to which schools have had access for many years, addresses exactly the kinds of concerns to which the noble Baroness has drawn attention. The reissue of the guidance will help remind schools of its existence and will provide an opportunity to ensure that it is fully up-to-date and covers those points that in earlier debates I have specifically undertaken to ensure are included. The revised guidance will be issued to coincide with the commencement of Clause 92, after consultation with key stakeholders.
	Given this commitment to producing guidance to support staff in exercising this power under Clause 92, we do not see the need for a statutory requirement for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on these matters. I again emphasise that there is nothing substantially new about Clause 92. The legislation that it re-enacts has been in force for eight years. As I say, during that time the Department has not seen evidence that either the legislation or the associated guidance has caused particular problems, or that inappropriate application of the power to use force is a widespread problem. This is not, of course, to say that there are not individual cases of concern—as the noble Baroness rightly said, of course there will be individual cases of concern—but we have no reason to believe that the non-statutory status of the current guidance has made staff more willing to use force or less responsible in the way they use it.
	For these reasons, with all the reassurances I have given, including the reissue of the guidance to meet current best practice, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 17 and 18. The amendments are interdependent and hold together. I am most grateful to the Minister for the great attention he has paid to these clauses and the attempts he has made to tell me about the steps that the Government feel able to take.
	Clause 100 effectively lays on governing bodies in the case of a fixed-term exclusion and in the case of a permanent exclusion on local authorities responsibility for providing the equivalent of full-time education for excluded children. We have no quarrel with that. Indeed, we much welcome it because it is clear that the more one can provide alternative education which is full-time and effective the better. It enables the excluded child to continue his or her education and, in the case of a fixed period of exclusion, to, we hope, go back to the mainstream school and resume their education there.
	The problem is quite straightforward. Even in the light of the great help that the Minister has extended to us for moving in these areas, it arises in the description of parents. In a letter the Minister has kindly sent me, which is addressed to the Local Government Association, a first group of parents is effectively described as those willing to take on the responsibility of caring for their child for the five days before the local authority or the governing body take over responsibility for educating the child to ensure that that child in those first five days is not in any public place during school hours. The second group of parents that the Government refer to in the clauses, and in particular in the letter to the Local Government Association, are parents who are unwilling to help in terms of taking the responsibility to care for their children during those first five days and to ensure that they are not in any public place during school hours.
	There is, however, a third group, which we on these Benches believe is the biggest group of the three. It is not parents who are able to take responsibility for the five days; it is not parents who are unwilling to do so—on both of those points we fully share the Government's position. It is a third group of parents who are simply unable to do so, because of the nature of their work, their economic situation or because of other children or elderly parents for whom they have a pressing responsibility. In the letter that I sent to the Minister, which he was gracious enough to accept and acknowledge, I said that there are a great many parents in this category—in particular, of course, a great many single parents—who simply cannot make themselves free for five days, even if they want to, without putting their jobs at risk or their other responsibilities at risk.
	I gave the Minister examples of, for instance, NHS nurses with responsibility for caring for people in hospital and teachers with responsibilities to their schools. In those cases, making a quick arrangement—a matter of hours in involved—to free themselves from those responsibilities so that they could look after their child for five days and ensure that he or she is kept out of a public place is, bluntly, an unrealistic demand to place upon them. It also carries the basis of being an offence that is finable and later might even involve a custodial sentence.
	I recognise that the Minister has gone a long way to try and meet us and I am grateful to him for that, but that final step, which recognises that if there is a good reason or justification for the parents' inability to respond, it is one that still weighs a little in the balance. We want to make sure that the parent—in this context I stress that we refer to a parent with good intentions but whose personal situations which make it either difficult or almost impossible to respond in the way required—has three things. I hope that the Minister will be able to satisfy us that these three things are now in place. The first thing they need is precise information about the terms of the exclusion—how long it is for, what conditions may be attached, whether there are any indications of the situations in which the child finds himself and so on. The first demand is the exact terms of the exclusion.
	The second requirement is that the parent knows and understands the basis of a good reason for his or her inability to respond or, crucially, to get relatives or friends to respond in his or her place. That has to be made plain; we would be grateful if the guidance could give clear examples and explain what justification might be accepted so that the parent would be most unlikely to be charged with committing an offence.
	The final requirement is that we want to ensure that parents have immediate redress if they seek to meet the requirements of the legislation, find themselves unable to do so, but want to know what they can do in the situation. We believe that in this situation the advice that can be made readily available outside office hours from the education welfare office is important. The Minister has been most helpful on that point and I am grateful to him. I would like to make sure that he now feels that the system would be able to be in place by the time that these clauses come into effect or soon afterwards, and also that he recognises that where this simply cannot be done it would be the ultimate responsibility of the local authority to ensure that the child is safeguarded if, for one reason and another, there is no ability to ensure that it does not appear in a public place for five days.
	I have one final, small question for the Minister. The guidance to the Bill indicates that for children of a certain age the parent might not need to be present to take them away from school. But if that child, on his way home from school, appears in a public place—if she or he bicycles back home after having been excluded—they are almost certain to be in a public place for at least for some time. Would that constitute an offence or would it constitute grounds that would be accepted because the attempt had been made to try to maintain the requirement laid upon the parent? I beg to move.